Apple's WWDC: Tim Cook's AI legacy at stake in his final developer conference as CEO

Apple heads into next week's Worldwide Developers Conference with its stock near record highs, iPhone momentum improving and one unresolved question hanging over Tim Cook' s final developer conference as CEO: Can Apple finally deliver the artificial intelligence experience it promised two years ago? The expected centerpiece of WWDC is a major overhaul of Siri , Apple’s long-criticized voice assistant. Analysts expect Apple to show a more powerful version of Siri with a standalone chatbot-style app, personal context, on-screen awareness, the ability to handle multi-step commands and deeper routing to outside models, potentially including Google ’s Gemini. For investors, WWDC is a test of whether Apple Intelligence can become a real iPhone upgrade driver — and justify a valuation that already assumes Apple can remain the device of choice for consumers accessing AI, regardless of which model they use. For developers, it is a test of whether Siri can become a true platform in the agentic era, and one worth building for. And for Cook, it is a legacy moment. As John Ternus prepares to take over for Cook as CEO, WWDC gives the company one last major developer stage to show that Apple's AI strategy is finally coming together. Dan Newman, CEO of The Futurum Group, told CNBC that Apple Intelligence is "one of the big black eyes" of Cook's tenure. …