Yesterday on Bloomberg, I shared my view on John Ternus taking over as Apple CEO. The question was what a hardware engineer brings to a company whose greatest challenge now sits in AI.
Ternus’s engineering background can help him because people inside Apple like working for him. He now has to create that same pull across digital AI, making recruiting his first test as CEO.
Ternus Has to Become Apple's Chief Talent Recruiter
Steve Jobs competed for exceptional people every day. He could present a vision that made candidates believe they'd help build Apple's future.
Ternus has to develop that ability fast. Apple has been losing AI talent to Meta and other competitors while struggling to attract the people who could lead its next phase.
Anthropic, OpenAI, Google DeepMind, and xAI are chasing many of the same researchers and executives. Their leaders recruit personally and can offer candidates direct involvement in frontier AI development.
Competing with those offers will require a clear vision. Ternus has to show incoming leaders what they'd actually be building at Apple, and why that's worth leaving a frontier lab for.
Apple Needs Model Builders and Applied AI Leaders
Apple has held on to talent in silicon. Its position across digital AI remains weaker, and the company hasn't made a serious statement in robotics yet.
There's work to do across model development and applied AI. Apple needs people who can advance its technical capabilities, along with leaders who know how to deploy AI in ways that produce revenue.
Executives with that record are scarce. Our research found that only about 1% of the companies we studied could point to an AI deployment that generated or protected $100 million or more.
Apple hasn't established a clear frontier model strategy. Its agentic AI work remains focused on deployments within its existing products. Ternus's early hires will show how aggressively he plans to expand beyond that position.
His First Appointments Will Reveal the Gaps
Ternus has already brought Laura Legros, a former Apple hardware engineering vice president, back to the company. People will now watch to see who else is willing to join him.
His AI appointments will be more revealing. Can Ternus persuade a senior leader to leave Anthropic or OpenAI? Can he pull someone out of Google DeepMind or another frontier model company?
I expect him to spend the next couple of months assessing the leadership team and identifying its gaps. Recruiting external executives into Apple at this level will be a new responsibility for him.
Those decisions will set his inner circle and show where he thinks Apple lacks experience.
Tim Cook's Continued Role Is Part of the Transition
Cook has moved into the executive chairman role. He’ll continue handling selected responsibilities, including policy matters in Washington.
This kind of arrangement is common during a CEO handover. The outgoing leader stays involved while relationships transfer and the incoming chief settles in. It usually doesn't last long.
Cook and Ternus can work together during that handover. Over time, Ternus will need full authority over Apple’s strategy and executive team. I don’t expect the current arrangement to become the company’s permanent leadership model.
Apple Still Needs a Successor Behind Ternus
Ternus was widely viewed as the natural internal choice. Now the board has to build the next layer of potential successors.
The best-prepared companies keep two or three internal options ready while staying close to external candidates too. Apple doesn't appear to have a clear heir behind Ternus today.
A major AI hire from Anthropic, OpenAI, Google DeepMind, or xAI would provide an early signal that Apple is serious about closing its AI talent gap.