Pierre Ferragu Takes Apple To Task For Dismissing The AI Revolution: 'Has Its Head In The Sand'

On Sunday, Pierre Ferragu, an analyst at New Street Research, criticized Apple Inc.'s AAPL research paper on Large Reasoning Models (LRMs), calling the company's approach to the AI revolution misguided.

What Happened: Ferragu shared his thoughts on X, formerly Twitter, stating, "Apple has its head in the sand. Instead of embracing the revolution, they deny its very existence."

He went on to say that Apple's paper, titled "The Illusion of Thinking: Understanding the Strengths and Limitations of Reasoning Models via the Lens of Problem Complexity," suffers from "ontological nonsense."

The analyst argued that human reasoning is inherently subjective and cannot be simplified into easily measured models.

Ferragu's critique stemmed from Apple's findings that frontier LRMs, while showing improved performance on reasoning benchmarks, still have major limitations, including a collapse in accuracy with increasing task complexity.

Why It's Important: Ferragu's comments reflect broader concerns in the AI industry about Apple potentially falling behind in the race to develop advanced reasoning models.

Apple hired Alphabet Inc. GOOG GOOGL-owned Google's AI chief John Giannandrea in 2018 to boost its AI capabilities, but the company is still lagging behind rivals like OpenAI, Microsoft Corporation MSFT and Amazon.com, Inc. AMZN.

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Despite promises of revamping Siri and advancing AI, many features have faced delays or don't work properly.

Previously, it was reported that internal tensions and a cautious approach are partly to blame. Apple's slower progress is also attributed to fewer GPU acquisitions, its strong privacy stance and a perfectionist culture that delays launches.

During Apple's May earnings call, CEO Tim Cook justified the delayed progress, stating that Apple Intelligence features require more time to align with the company's high-quality standards.

Price Action: According to Benzinga Pro, Apple shares are down 16.37% year to date, but have surged 140.76% over the past five years.

Benzinga's Edge Stock Rankings indicate that Apple is experiencing a declining price trend over the short, medium and long term. More detailed metrics are available here.

Photo Courtesy: Prathmesh T on Shutterstock.com

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