John Ternus, ilk büyük zorluk olarak yapay zeka ile Apple CEO'su oldu

John Ternus becomes Apple CEO, with AI as first big challenge

Mon, August 31, 2026 at 2:19 PM GMT+3 2 min read

• AAPL +1.63%

John Ternus becomes Apple Inc.'s chief executive officer on Sept. 1, stepping into the role with an immediate product launch cycle and a company under pressure to close the gap with rivals in artificial intelligence.

Tim Cook, who led Apple for 15 years, moves to executive chairman on the same date. Cook told employees he would continue managing Apple's relationships with President Donald Trump and the Chinese government, and that he is available to assist Ternus on any tasks his successor requires, according to Bloomberg. Art Levinson, the current board chair, becomes lead independent director on Sept. 1, Apple said.

Ternus, 51, joined Apple in 2001 and rose to senior vice president of hardware engineering in 2021. His first major public test as CEO comes on Sept. 9, when Apple hosts a product launch event at its Cupertino, California campus that is expected to feature the company's first foldable iPhone, new Apple Watches, and the debut of a rebuilt Siri voice assistant powered by large language models, Apple said.

Apple's AI position is the most consequential issue Ternus inherits. The company faced mounting criticism over the delayed overhaul of Siri and its pace in generative AI, leading to a leadership shake-up in the AI division and a decision to rebuild Siri using Google's Gemini technology as its foundation. A full-scale deployment of the new Siri is set for September. Early reviews have been positive, Bloomberg reported.

Ternus is also responsible for a broader set of hardware products he guided during his time as Apple's hardware chief, among them AirPods equipped with environment-sensing cameras, smart glasses, a home security system, a display mounted on a robotic arm, and a wearable pendant. A number of those products have been pushed back because Apple's AI software was not ready to support them.

On his final earnings call as CEO, Cook described Apple's ability to process AI workloads directly on devices as a strategic advantage over cloud-dependent competitors, and said the company sees "enormous opportunities" ahead in AI.

For supply chain and financial challenges — domains where Cook built his reputation — Ternus is anticipated to lean on Chief Operating Officer Sabih Khan and Chief Financial Officer Kevan Parekh rather than managing those issues directly. Apple is contending with a persistent shortage of memory and storage chips that the company has cited as a driver of recent price increases, a problem it does not expect to resolve before next year.