Apple reiterated as BofA's Top Pick on expected AI upgrades

Apple (AAPL) shares are trading higher after Bank of America reiterated it as a top pick, maintaining its Buy rating and price target of $230. Yahoo Finance Tech Editor Dan Howley breaks down what to expect from the company's upcoming Worldwide Developers Conference.

Howley notes that investors want to hear more about Apple's AI initiatives, as the company has arrived relatively late to the AI race. However, Howley explains that the tech giant is most likely taking its time with its AI products, as companies like Google are currently dealing with the fallout from the unintended consequences of AI search engines.

"Apple is all about fit and finish. It's all about delivering a product that people love, and if they flub that, I think that would be a bigger problem than not having anything at all," Howley says.

For more expert insight and the latest market action, click here to watch this full episode of Morning Brief.

This post was written by Melanie Riehl

Video transcript

Good vibes this morning for Apple Bank of America reiterated the company as the top pick, maintaining a buy rating and a price target of $230 on the stock B of A analysts are optimistic about the adoption of A I enabled phones.

They're coming.

Dan Dan Yahoo finances, Dan Halley here to tell me whether or not these A I enabled phones are coming.

Are they I think they call them in telephones.

Uh That is uh yeah, in telephone, you need to workshop about quotes.

Yeah.

Um but I mean, look, this is something that Apple clearly has had to work on.

Uh They don't have any really generative A I capabilities right now that are doing anything.

Uh They've been teasing this for some time.

Tim Cook has been teasing it uh on various uh earnings calls just because they've been left in the dust.

Microsoft has generative A I Google has Generative A I Meta uh Amazon, all of these companies are doing it.

Um uh some success, some floods here and there.

Uh but Apple has been the, the one kept out and so this is seen uh by a lot of analysts as potentially a kind of new driver for smartphone sales.

Now, do I feel that way?

Not, not, well, I don't, I, I, unless they show something at WW DC that's like software driven that I think is gonna get people excited, then it's not gonna do anything right.

People care about the camera, the screen and the battery.

Now beyond that, there's gotta be some amazing software feature.

No one's ever like, man.

did you get that Siri update?

Have you ever heard of anyone say that?

No, even when Siri came out, people were like cool.

I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

Yeah, I just activated everybody's phone.

Um But II I think if, if they can do something with the software that gets people actually excited, then it will be a driver.

Now, what does that look like?

I don't know.

Right, because Samsung and Google already have generative A I capabilities on their own phones and it's not really a reason for people to wanna buy them, right?

It's more about the capabilities of the phones physically offer.

So I don't necessarily know that this is going to be the driver that everybody hopes it's going to be.

Uh unless it truly is something that Apple can say.

Look at how amazing this is compared to the rest of, of what's out there, this is going to get people to want to buy.

So Dan, then how much is riding on the worldwide developers conference here next month just in terms of if there's any disappointment, what do you think the impact is, or I guess what are analysts saying that the impact could potentially be here on Apple and the demand there for their phones, at least in the near term?

Well, I think this is really uh a kind of setting up table stakes for like the future of, of Apple and their software just because look, they're already c is behind on this technology.

That's changing things, right?

Microsoft showed with their uh their laptops that these are interesting technologies that can do a lot, right?

They have new features called things like recall uh that can kind of pull up anything you've been doing on your phone in the past uh you know, couple of years uh if you have the settings tweaked, right?

Uh They're, they're doing cool, interesting things.

Um Apple needs to offer that across everything, not just the iphone.

So if they don't, if they disappoint, um I don't think it's gonna get people to not buy an iphone.

Um But I, I think it's going to leave Wall Street and, and, and analysts saying, well, what gives is Apple has Apple lost its edge and I think that's more along the lines of what would happen is that the right way and going back to what you just said a minute ago, that Apple is very much viewed as maybe lagging when the comes to A I adoption in the A I race right now.

Is that the right way to view Apple at this point?

And I, I guess, is it a bit surprising just given the fact that you've covered the company for so long and it's normally on the cutting edge when it comes to technological advances and adoption.

Yeah, I think, I think it's a, I think when it comes to where they should be as far as at least having something uh to preview, right?

They're, they're behind, right?

But if you look at something like uh uh meta, they're releasing these technologies as open source.

So it's not really finding its way into too many products.

It's more on the advertising side.

Um You know, Amazon, obviously, this is more about, they have their uh Rufus uh A I assistant which is helpful but has its issues.

Um Google has launched ja I it's telling you to eat rocks, right?

So Apple doesn't want to do that right.

That I think would be a bigger problem for apple and the perception of apple than it would be for, for something like Google.

Now, it's a huge problem for Google because they're supposed to be the source of trust online.

You don't say let me Google this real quick because you don't trust them, you do it because you do trust them.

So it's a huge problem for Google.

Apple is all about fit and finish.

It's all about delivering a product that people love and if they flo that, I think that would be a bigger problem than not having anything at all.

Nobody should be surprised that artificial intelligence is telling humans to eat rocks.

Yeah.

I mean, look, eat rocks, eat paste.

It's totally fine.

Uh, and, uh, yeah, I mean, look, it's not, uh, like you ever go to Google for anything important, you know?

So, well, we're just gonna leave it there.

Lie great settings you have on with us here this morning.