Can Apple's M6 & M5 Ultra Narrow the AI Gap With GOOGL & MSFT?

Apple AAPL has introduced the M6 and M5 Ultra chips, strengthening its silicon portfolio for increasingly compute-intensive AI workloads. The M6, debuting in the new Mac mini, is Apple’s first chip built on a 2-nanometer process and includes a 12-core CPU, 12-core GPU with Neural Accelerators, a Dual 16-core Neural Engine and up to 170GB/s of unified memory bandwidth. Meanwhile, the M5 Ultra, powering the new Mac Studio, uses a quad-die architecture and offers up to a 36-core CPU, an 80-core GPU and 1.2TB/s of unified memory bandwidth.

The M6 is particularly focused on accelerating mainstream on-device AI. Its Dual 16-core Neural Engine delivers up to twice the peak compute of previous generations, while GPU compute for AI improves nearly 30% over M5. The chip supports up to 32GB of unified memory, allowing users to run large language models (LLMs) and agentic AI tasks locally with greater privacy. These improvements should strengthen Apple’s ability to expand Apple Intelligence capabilities across Mac devices while giving developers more computing capacity for coding, content creation and AI applications.

M5 Ultra could provide an even bigger boost to Apple’s ambitions in advanced AI development. Its GPU provides up to 4.5 times the peak AI compute of M3 Ultra, while a 32-core Neural Engine is designed to accelerate Apple Intelligence features securely on the device. More importantly, configurations with up to 512GB of unified memory and 1.2TB/s of bandwidth can run LLMs containing hundreds of billions of parameters locally. This could make Mac Studio increasingly relevant to AI researchers, developers and enterprises seeking to reduce dependence on cloud infrastructure for large-model inference and development.

The M6 and M5 Ultra launches arrive amid solid momentum in Apple’s Mac business and increasing AI investment. Mac revenues climbed 29% year over year to $10.4 billion in the third quarter of fiscal 2026, while Apple reported an installed base of more than 2.5 billion active devices. Research and development expenses also increased to $11.73 billion from $8.87 billion a year earlier, highlighting Apple’s elevated spending on innovation. Apple’s latest results also showed revenues rising 16% year over year to $109.4 billion, providing substantial financial resources to support its AI roadmap.

Apple Faces Stiff Competition

AAPL is facing stiff competition from the likes of Alphabet GOOGL and Microsoft MSFT in AI. Alphabet and Microsoft are challenging Apple in AI by building broader AI ecosystems that span consumer applications, enterprise software, cloud infrastructure, developer platforms and autonomous agents. This has spooked investors as concerns continue to grow that Apple risks falling behind in the generative AI race despite its large ecosystem and hardware advantages.

Alphabet is leveraging the scale of Gemini across its consumer ecosystem. Gemini App reached 950 million monthly active users, while AI Mode surpassed 1 billion monthly active users. Gemini is also being integrated into Search, YouTube and Chrome, giving Alphabet multiple high-frequency consumer touchpoints for AI adoption. More than 140 million users interacted with Ask YouTube in June 2026. This broad distribution could challenge Apple’s ability to differentiate Apple Intelligence primarily through its device ecosystem.

Microsoft is leveraging AI for productivity and enterprise workflows. Microsoft 365 Copilot has surpassed 30 million paid seats, while the number of customers with more than 50,000 seats increased more than sevenfold year over year. Microsoft is evolving Copilot from conversational chat toward Cowork and autonomous Autopilots, while combining its AI experiences into a super app spanning consumer and commercial users. Microsoft also has significant developer leverage. GitHub Copilot has 50 million users, and Copilot revenues accelerated more than 60% sequentially.

AAPL’s Share Price Performance, Valuation & Estimates

Apple shares have returned 14% year to date, underperforming the broader Zacks Computer and Technology sector’s return of 14.4%.

Apple Stock’s Performance

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The AAPL stock is trading at a premium, with a forward 12-month price/earnings of 32.77X compared with the broader sector’s 20.66X. AAPL has a Value Score of F.

AAPL Valuation

Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for fiscal 2026 earnings is pegged at $8.85 per share, up 0.9% over the past 30 days, suggesting 18.63% year-over-year growth.
 

Apple currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

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