A securities class action complaint has alleged that Apple made materially false and misleading statements about its AI, which then sank the company’s stock.
On 20 June 2025, an Apple shareholder sued Apple, its chief executive Tim Cook and other executives for their allegedly misleading statements regarding Apple products’ AI abilities. According to the putative class action, those alleged misstatements began in June 2024 during Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC).
Key takeaways
- An Apple shareholder claims the company intentionally made misleading comments regarding future products’ AI capabilities to inflate its stock
- Those announced AI features haven’t materialised yet and have lowered Apple’s stock, according to the lawsuit
- The lawsuit continues an “AI washing” regulatory trend
Shutterstock.com/Primakov
During that conference, Apple revealed Apple Intelligence, a “personal intelligence system that combines the power of generative models with users’ personal context – at the core of iPhone, iPad, and Mac to deliver intelligence that’s incredibly useful and relevant.”
The company also announced that Apple Intelligence will bolster Apple’s voice-activated virtual assistant Siri by enhancing its language-understanding capabilities and improving Siri’s abilities to simplify and accelerate everyday tasks. The plaintiff alleged that those claims are materially false and misleading.
“However, unbeknownst to investors, Apple lacked a functional prototype of these advanced AI-based Siri features at the time of the 2024 WWDC and had no reasonable basis to believe it could deliver the product it was advertising within the iPhone 16 product cycle, if ever,” according to the complaint.
Specifically, Apple allegedly misstated the time needed to integrate the advanced AI-based Siri features into its products, according to the lawsuit. The plaintiff noted that on 7 March 2025, Apple announced it was indefinitely delaying “promised updates” to its Siri digital assistant.
The complaint noted numerous reports at the time that quoted an Apple spokesperson stating “that certain features initially announced in June 2024, including Siri’s ability to tap into a user’s personal information to answer queries and have more precise control over apps, were ‘tak[ing] [] longer [to deliver] than [the Company] thought’ and will now be released sometime in ‘the coming year.’”
Stock prices
By 10 March 2025, Apple’s stock price had dropped by 4.85%. Two days later, Morgan Stanley published an analyst report that lowered its price target on Apple.
According to the complaint, the Morgan Stanley analyst claimed that Apple’s delay in introducing advanced Siri features would affect iPhone upgrade cycles throughout 2025 and 2026. Apple’s stock price then went down another 5.05% by 13 March 2025.
The plaintiff also argued Apple’s 2025 WWDC further dampened stock prices after the tech giant “conspicuously failed to announce any new updates regarding advanced Siri features.” Apple stock prices fell another 1.21% after the 2025 WWDC.
The complaint also alleged that Apple knew its announced AI-based Siri features had not been developed for iPhone 16 devices. During an internal Apple meeting, Siri senior director Robby Walker said Apple had promoted the advanced Siri AI “before it was ready,” according to the complaint.
“[Walker] also noted that ‘to make matters worse,’ Apple’s marketing communications department wanted to promote the enhancements, and, despite not being ready, they were included in a series of marketing campaigns and TV commercials. Apple touted the features as a ‘key selling point’ of the iPhone 16 line, which otherwise lacked major changes,” according to the complaint.
According to the plaintiff, there’s no guarantee that the announced advanced AI Siri features will ever materialise.
“Indeed, Apple’s software chief Craig Federighi and other Apple executives have ‘voiced strong concerns internally that the features didn’t work properly – or as advertised – in their personal testing,’ and some within Apple’s AI division ‘believe that work on the features could be scrapped altogether, and that Apple may have to rebuild the functions from scratch,’” the plaintiff wrote.
The plaintiff argued Apple’s AI statements were an alleged scheme to inflate Apple’s securities.
The plaintiff seeks to certify a class of individuals that acquired Apple securities between 10 June 2024 and 9 June 2025. The plaintiff also asked the court to order Apple to pay unspecified damages sustained by the plaintiff and the proposed class.
Apple did not respond to Lexology PRO’s request for comment.
AI washing trend
As Apple deals with private litigation regarding its AI claims, regulators across the globe have also focused on companies’ AI representations. For instance, the US Federal Trade Commission issued an enforcement action in April 2025 against a generative AI detection tool the regulator claimed misrepresented its accuracy – continuing a trend set under an earlier administration.
The EU Artificial Intelligence Act 2024 also sets transparency obligations on AI developers and distributors that may also curb “AI washing” – when companies overstate their AI capabilities. Meanwhile, the UK Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 authorises the UK Competition and Markets Authority to directly enforce consumer protection law, including complaints about false or misleading claims, amongst other government regulators cracking down on AI washing.
Counsel to the plaintiff
Pomerantz
Partner Jennifer Pafiti in Los Angeles