Berkshire Hathaway, under the leadership of Warren Buffett, has allocated approximately 40% of its substantial $293 billion portfolio towards five artificial intelligence stocks.
Apple has made significant strides in the realm of artificial intelligence (AI), with state-of-the-art foundation language models powering its device and cloud-based AI features. These models, developed in-house, include a 3-billion-parameter on-device model optimized for Apple silicon and a scalable server-side model with a novel Parallel-Track Mixture-of-Experts transformer architecture.
These models, trained on diverse datasets and fine-tuned with reinforcement learning and supervised fine-tuning, have achieved competitive or superior benchmarks compared to other open models. Notable AI features integrated into Apple devices, such as the iPhone 15 and later, include a "Clean Up" tool in the Photos app for AI-based image inpainting/removal, priority notification filtering, and more subtle yet daily-use improvements.
Siri, Apple's virtual assistant, is also set to receive an upgrade with the introduction of On-Screen Awareness technology. This innovation enables Siri to understand and act on the content displayed on the user's screen, significantly enhancing its usefulness through AI agents capable of deeper interaction with user context.
However, there have been internal delays in the development of next-generation Siri AI voice control features, causing executive changes and ongoing efforts to improve AI-powered voice interaction and app integration in iOS 26 and beyond. Despite these challenges, Apple appears to be focusing on proprietary model and software development, prioritizing privacy and integration tightly coupled with its hardware and ecosystem.
In contrast, there is no public, specific information about Apple making or planning major AI-related acquisitions. Instead, the tech giant seems to be investing heavily in in-house development of its foundation models and AI capabilities.
Meanwhile, other companies like American Express are leveraging AI to improve their operations. American Express has integrated AI into its IT support system, reducing the number of tickets requiring human intervention. The company is also pushing its revenue growth higher led by higher annual fees without losing customers. Its travel concierge team uses generative AI tools to curate personalized travel recommendations, and one of the fastest growing sources of revenue for American Express over the past few years has been the annual fees on its cards.
Visa and Mastercard, too, are using AI to improve their payments networks, similar to American Express. Both payments networks are well positioned, winning the majority of electronic payments partnerships with credit card issuing banks. Visa and Mastercard trade for higher valuations than American Express, at 31 times earnings for Visa and 35 times earnings for Mastercard.
In the tech industry, Amazon has been slow to catch onto the AI trend compared to its peers in cloud computing. However, Amazon has recently developed Amazon Bedrock and acquired a significant stake in Anthropic. Amazon's cloud computing segment, AWS, has reaccelerated its growth, driving strong demand for AI services on its platform. Amazon has also integrated AI capabilities into its logistics network to ensure inventory is well positioned across its warehouses in the United States.
Apple's biggest challenge lies in maintaining security and privacy for its users, resulting in a focus on on-device AI. Reports suggest Apple is exploring potential acquisitions that could expand its AI capabilities, including the potential purchase of Perplexity, an AI-powered search engine.
In conclusion, Apple's AI strategy strongly emphasizes privacy, device integration, and custom-tailored models rather than acquiring external AI companies at this time. Other companies like American Express, Visa, Mastercard, and Amazon are leveraging AI to improve various aspects of their businesses, from customer service to marketing and logistics.
Apple's AI strategy centers around in-house development and custom-tailored models, with a focus on privacy and device integration (investing). In contrast, companies like American Express use AI to streamline operations, generate higher revenue, and personalize customer services (finance, technology). Visa, Mastercard, and Amazon also leverage AI to improve their payments networks and logistics (finance, technology). The tech giant, Apple, shows potential interest in expanding its AI capabilities through acquisitions, such as Perplexity, an AI-powered search engine (finance, technology, artificial-intelligence).
