Plus: CCOs are getting more powerful; it’s getting harder to track AI influencers; Chase shows off power of PR with Times hit.
Tim Cook will take the stage at his final Worldwide Developers Conference as the CEO of Apple on Monday. It comes as a pivotal time, with Apple still seeking to cement its role in the great AI race even as the company turns over the reins to John Ternus.
CNBC reports that Apple is expected “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.” It’s seen as a critical moment to show how Apple can use AI to drive iPhone upgrades, even if it isn’t the one creating the LLMs themselves.
“This is clearly the moment that Apple can say, ‘Hey, we are capable of taking advantage of our multi-billion-user install base,’” said Dan Newman, CEO of The Futurum Group.
AI under Cook has had a rocky tenure, with the brand often seen as falling behind and unable to entice large numbers of iPhone users to upgrade to more powerful phones that better integrate AI technology.
Why it matters: The announcements today will help define how Cook faced one of his greatest challenges as CEO. Cook is an experienced pro at WWDCs, but his presentation today will be the one he’s remembered for.
It also presents a fascinating comms challenge of passing the torch to Ternus. While Ternus himself is no stranger to Apple stages, this is his first with the intense spotlight of leadership upon him. Be on the lookout for how Cook positions Ternus, how the two share the stage, interact and divvy up duties. It’s a careful dance, wanting to give Cook his last moment in the spotlight while also setting Ternus up for success when he takes the stage alone next time.
Listen closely for how the two refer to one another and who gets to make the classic “and one more thing” announcement.
Editor’s Top Reads:
- Here’s some great news for comms pros: CCOs are gaining power and influence. As the Wall Street Journal puts it, “The bleeding together of investor memos, advertising copy, press releases, company social-media accounts and most recently large language model results has sent business leaders scrambling to better control the corporate narrative at the very top.” The article points to a 2025 Korn Ferry survey that found that nearly half of CCOs now report directly to the CEO, up from just 37% a decade before. And some communicators are now even ascending to the top spot, like Roberta Thomson, who made her way from CCO to CEO of Hasbro AI Studio. Yahoo CCO Sona Iliffe-Moon, who spoke last week at the PR Daily Conference, told the Journal: “My role wasn’t just to think about how we’d talk about the product at or after launch, it was to help evaluate whether it was genuinely useful and trustworthy for consumers while it was still being built.” This increasing recognition for communicators is a great sign of stability and trust in the profession. As AI continues to change the game, fostering trust is more important than ever. And no one does that better than communicators.
- AI-generated influencers seem more human than ever before. The Verge reports that as AI video generation improves, it’s becoming trickier to spot who exists only in code and who’s a flesh-and-blood human. AI influencers are expected to rake in $12 billion this year alone, with that number expected to rocket to $60 billion by 2030. This is good and bad news for communicators. On the one hand, it’s easier to create your own realistic avatars to share messages. Or it creates new partnerships that can reach audiences in new ways. On the negative side, it’s easier for bad actors to spread disinformation about your brand. And don’t forget the increasing backlash from some consumers against AI-generated content. Still, this is not a segment of the AI boom to ignore. Synthetic humans offer promise and peril. How will you address both?
- Chase Bank landed a great feature in the New York Times digging into how it’s working to stop scammers from preying on customers. Bank scams against customers, especially the elderly, are on the rise. Chase highlighted several cases of tellers preventing customers from losing thousands of dollars as well as touted the work of their on-staff behavioral scientist who is helping empower a specialized team to intervene in these often-fraught situations. This story is a great example of the power of PR: By highlighting a unique hire and the heroic work of employees, Chase positions itself as a leader in fraud prevention far more than any ad campaign could do. It makes Chase sound like the kind of place you’d want your elderly parents banking.
Allison Carter is editorial director of PR Daily and Ragan.com. Follow her on LinkedIn.
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