Apple's (AAPL) earnings bring Apple Intelligence into focus as the iPhone maker rolls out its artificial intelligence (AI) features, hoping to drive an accelerated device upgrade cycle. Creative Strategies CEO and principal analyst Ben Bajarin joins Market Domination Hosts Julie Hyman and Josh Lipton to discuss the balancing act Apple needs to perform in building excitement around Apple Intelligence to drive upgrades while not overpromising and disappointing users.

Bajarin talks about the "unpredictability" that Apple Intelligence presents for Apple and investors trying to gauge how the tech could drive an upgrade cycle. "It's been hard to look back on the history of a couple [of] decades of consumer electronics and really see software itself drive a hardware cycle. It's typically been very hardware-driven, and I think that's the hardest comp that many of us are having to make is to really look at how much of a software angle is actually going to drive a hardware cycle when.... that's not really a comp that we've had before."

"I think Apple Intelligence is the most mature kind of consumer AI implementation at a system level for customers," he says, but notes that "Apple's now got to go market and tell that message and make it clear to consumers why are they going to want to use these features."

The analyst says while Apple is "in a unique position to onboard and help mature experiences with this software," he worries "that people are coming from either too high of expectations or really no expectations at all because it's not really a driver for them to go and want to use these devices."

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This post was written by Naomi Buchanan.