Apple CEO Tim Cook said DeepSeek’s AI models represent “innovation that drives efficiency” during an earnings call Thursday while fielding questions from analysts about the iPhone maker’s AI ambitions.
“In general, I think innovation that drives efficiency is a good thing. And, you know, that’s what you see in that model,” said Cook, responding to an analyst’s question about how DeepSeek’s AI models would impact Apple’s margins.
Cook went on to note that Apple leverages a hybrid model for its AI, in which it runs some simple tasks locally — using its own AI models on its device’s custom silicon chips. Meanwhile, other, more complicated tasks run in the cloud through partnerships with AI model providers.
Cook also said Apple has always taken a “prudent and deliberate” approach to these types of expenditures.
Apple currently only has one AI partnership, with OpenAI, which allows ChatGPT to answer complex questions from iPhone users in a private cloud.
OpenAI claimed this week to have evidence that its AI models were used to train DeepSeek’s AI models through a process called distillation. If true, that would violate OpenAI’s usage policies and undermine DeepSeek’s accomplishments.
That didn’t stop Apple’s CEO from tossing a compliment toward DeepSeek.
Apple has indicated its OpenAI partnership is not exclusive, and it may integrate other companies’ AI models into the iPhone in the future, such as Google’s Gemini or Anthropic’s Claude. Cook did not go as far as to suggest Apple would integrate DeepSeek’s models, however.
Beyond OpenAI’s allegations of IP theft, several tech analysts have suggested that DeepSeek’s AI models were trained with significantly more GPUs and computation costs than the company claims. That would mean DeepSeek’s AI models were not trained quite as efficiently as some suspected. Still, the Chinese AI lab sells access to its models at a steep discount compared with what American AI labs charge.
Investors also peppered Cook with questions about the success of Apple Intelligence.
The phased launch of Apple’s AI features does not appear to have created the immediate boost to iPhone sales that some predicted. Instead, sales slightly declined in the last quarter, compared to last year.
Hoping to spin the decline more favorably, Cook claimed the company saw stronger sales in regions where Apple Intelligence had rolled out than regions where it had not.
Apple has faced other issues with its AI features, beyond their lack of availability. It recently paused its AI summaries of news articles this month after the feature produced misleading headlines. 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.