Apple’s annual Worldwide Developer’s Conference (WWDC) has always been more than just a showcase of software updates—it’s a statement of intent. It reveals to the developer community—as well as to the world at large—what Apple thinks is most important about each of its platforms.

But as WWDC 2025 approaches, the stakes feel dramatically higher than usual. With tech giants like Google, Microsoft, and OpenAI sprinting ahead in artificial intelligence, the pressure is on Apple not only to catch up—but to prove it still belongs in the conversation. What we can expect This year’s WWDC is shaping up less like a grand unveiling and more like a make-or-break update. Apple already introduced Apple Intelligence at last year’s WWDC, promising privacy-first generative features and a smarter Siri. But in the year since, very little has materialized. The features arrived late, rolled out slowly, and failed to generate much excitement. Many of them—notification summaries, writing tools, and image playgrounds—have been problematic and remain a disappointment compared with the competition. There are suggestions that we may see updates that make Apple Intelligence slightly more accessible to third-party developers—such as new APIs for summarization, task automation, or suggested replies. And Apple could announce that it’s bringing Google Gemini on board as an option for users in the same way it announced ChatGPT integration last year.

But none of this is expected to move the needle dramatically. What Apple is likely to do is what it always does: emphasize its privacy advantages, show off beautifully controlled demos, and wrap incremental upgrades in the language of elegant design and trustworthiness. What we won’t see What’s unlikely to show up is exactly what Apple arguably needs most: a clear leap forward in generative AI. Despite launching Apple Intelligence last year, Apple still doesn’t have a competitive large language model of its own, and there’s no indication it plans to introduce one. Most of the AI work is still being powered by OpenAI behind the scenes, with Apple acting more as a front-end for someone else’s technology than a platform leader. Also missing: any meaningful upgrade to Siri. For all the talk of AI-enhanced assistants, Siri remains inconsistent, brittle, and far behind the real-time reasoning and multimodal capabilities demonstrated by OpenAI’s GPT-4o or Google’s Gemini Live. There’s no expectation Apple will unveil a Siri that can navigate your device, interact fluidly with apps, or hold a context-rich, back-and-forth conversation.

What’s also off the table is any kind of public roadmap toward Apple building its own foundational models. Unlike Meta, Google, or even smaller players like Anthropic, Apple has remained silent on training its own GPT-class LLMs or competing in the model layer. There’s also no public cloud-based developer model in sight, leaving Apple notably absent from the infrastructure layer of AI. So while Apple may refresh its AI pitch, expand access to existing features, and try to recapture some excitement, it will still be operating from behind—repackaging existing partnerships and product polish as innovation. The lack of a bold leap forward could once again reinforce the perception that Apple is falling further behind in a race that’s rapidly redefining the future of computing. Absence of a strategy The absence of a clear and ambitious AI strategy would be more than a missed opportunity—it could be a strategic blunder. In the past year, Microsoft embedded AI into Windows, Office, and Azure. Google placed AI front and center in Android and Search. OpenAI launched GPT-4o, a multimodal assistant capable of real-time voice conversation, coding, and document analysis. Nvidia became the world’s most valuable chipmaker, and Meta open-sourced increasingly competitive models.

Apple, meanwhile, has remained conspicuously quiet. That silence, once mistaken for secrecy or caution, now risks being interpreted as stagnation. If Apple shows up at WWDC and doesn’t address its two biggest pain points—AI and developer relations—it will come across as out of step with the rest of the tech industry, and out of touch with one of its most important audiences. Worse, Apple’s hesitation could threaten its control over the user experience. If the most advanced AI models live inside ChatGPT, Gemini, or Copilot, then users will increasingly rely on those tools across their devices—even on iPhones. The irony? Apple, the company that revolutionized how we interact with devices, could become a middleman in someone else’s AI ecosystem.

The moment of truth To be fair, Apple’s slow approach is not without logic. It prizes user privacy, and generative AI presents significant privacy risks. Running models on-device rather than in the cloud is a key part of Apple’s identity, and that kind of development takes time. Still, the market is shifting, and consumer expectations are changing. AI isn’t just a backend feature anymore—it’s becoming the front end of computing. If Apple doesn’t show a compelling AI vision at WWDC, it could find itself boxed out of that future, even if its devices remain dominant in the present. This WWDC won’t just be a software update; it’s a referendum on whether Apple can still lead in defining the next era of computing. The company that once made “insanely great” products must now convince the world it can make insanely smart ones, too.

Tim Cook and Apple’s executive team are walking a tightrope. If they were to deliver a truly compelling AI story—especially one that respects user privacy and works seamlessly across devices—they could reset the narrative and take a leadership role on their own terms. All signs, however, point to Apple just pressing through without acknowledging what everyone else can already see: the company is far behind and has nothing to show for its efforts to catch up.

The opinions expressed here by Inc.com columnists are their own, not those of Inc.com.