When Apple revealed its AI intentions, it overtook Microsoft as the most valuable corporation in the world

Following its announcement during Monday’s keynote address at the developers conference that it will be pursuing artificial intelligence, Apple overtook Microsoft on Wednesday to take the top spot in terms of market value.

As of around 10:45 a.m. ET, Apple’s market capitalization of $3.3 trillion has surpassed Microsoft’s $3.2 trillion market capitalization. Following their review of Apple’s ambitious plans for artificial intelligence across its range of products, investors sent the company’s shares soaring more than 7% to a record high on Tuesday.

Shares started the trading day on Wednesday with a roughly 4% increase, demonstrating that excitement persisted. With capabilities like writing assistance and emojis produced by generative AI, Apple said that it will integrate generative AI technology into both its native applications and its newest devices.

Analysts from Morgan Stanley, Evercore, and Bank of America stated this week in investor notes that Apple’s new artificial intelligence (AI) features, dubbed Apple Intelligence, will encourage people to purchase new iPhones. Evercore analysts noted, «Apple Intelligence’s restriction to iPhones sold within the last year adds to our conviction that AI can help kick off an iPhone super cycle.»

There’s a competition for supremacy. Earlier in the year, Microsoft’s market capitalization exceeded Apple’s. Nvidia temporarily overtook Apple to take the second place as the most valuable publicly traded US business earlier this month.

Microsoft is probably going to benefit from Apple’s AI aspirations as well. The manufacturer of iPhones declared that its customers will have access to OpenAI’s large-language models as a feature, with more models to be added eventually. One of OpenAI’s biggest backers is Microsoft, whose Azure cloud services have grown recently due to the models’ broad usage.