Apple CEO Tim Cook Praises DeepSeek’s AI Models as "Innovation that Drives Efficiency"

During an earnings call on Thursday, Apple CEO Tim Cook expressed his admiration for DeepSeek’s AI models, stating that they represent "innovation that drives efficiency." This comment was made in response to an analyst’s question about how DeepSeek’s AI models would impact Apple’s margins.

Cook’s Perspective on AI Innovation

Cook believes that innovation that drives efficiency is a good thing, and he sees this in DeepSeek’s AI models. He noted that Apple leverages a hybrid model for its AI, where some simple tasks are run locally on device custom silicon chips, while more complicated tasks are run in the cloud through partnerships with AI model providers.

Apple’s Approach to AI Expenditures

Cook emphasized that Apple takes a "prudent and deliberate" approach to AI-related expenditures. This approach is evident in the company’s current single AI partnership with OpenAI, which allows ChatGPT to answer complex questions from iPhone users in a private cloud.

OpenAI’s Allegations Against DeepSeek

However, OpenAI recently claimed to have evidence that its AI models were used to train DeepSeek’s AI models through a process called distillation. If true, this would violate OpenAI’s usage policies and undermine DeepSeek’s accomplishments. Despite this, Cook still praised DeepSeek’s AI models.

Future AI Partnerships

Apple has indicated that its OpenAI partnership is not exclusive, and the company may integrate other companies’ AI models into the iPhone in the future, such as Google’s Gemini or Anthropic’s Claude. Cook did not suggest that Apple would integrate DeepSeek’s models, however.

Efficiency Concerns

Several tech analysts have suggested that DeepSeek’s AI models were trained with significantly more GPUs and computation costs than the company claims. This would mean that DeepSeek’s AI models were not trained as efficiently as some suspected. However, the Chinese AI lab sells access to its models at a steep discount compared to what American AI labs charge.

Investor Questions

Investors also asked Cook about the success of Apple Intelligence, which has seen a phased launch of AI features. Despite this, iPhone sales slightly declined in the last quarter compared to last year. Cook attempted to spin the decline by claiming that the company saw stronger sales in regions where Apple Intelligence had rolled out than regions where it had not.

AI Feature Issues

Apple has faced other issues with its AI features, including the recent pause of its AI summaries of news articles due to generating false alerts. In one case, Apple Intelligence hallucinated and changed a BBC news headline to incorrectly read that Luigi Mangione, the man charged in the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, had shot himself, which was untrue.