AI Angst: Apple Shareholders Sue Over “Misleading” Statements

June 26, 2025

By Jack Grogan-Fenn

Two years on from a strongly supported shareholder resolutions seeking clarity on AI, Apple is now facing shareholders in court.

At the company’s 2024 AGM, a resolution requesting the board prepare a report for shareholders on the use of AI received 36.49% shareholder support. The proposal was backed by Norges Bank Investment Management and Legal & General Investment Management, Apple's eighth and tenth largest shareholders respectively.

Apple was also challenged by key shareholders on AI at its 2025 AGM in February, with a proposal requesting that the board report on ethical AI data acquisition and usage being backed by 11.4% of investors. Matters have now moved to the next level with the filing of a lawsuit in a San Francisco federal court.

According to the lawsuit, it is claimed that company misled investors over its integration of AI into its digital assistant Siri to boost phone sales leading to a sharp decline in the company’s stock price between June 10, 2024 and June 9, 2025, detrimentally impacting shareholders.

Led by Apple shareholder Eric Tucker, it is alleged that statements made by Apple relating to the time it would take to implement AI into Siri and the availability of AI features for the iPhone 16 during that period were “materially false and misleading”.

Apple is facing pressure from its investors over its Apple Intelligence unveiled at the company’s 2024 Worldwide Developer Conference, responding to heightened competition from fellow tech firms.

At the event, Apple had stated that Apple Intelligence would make Siri “more deeply integrated into the system experience” with “richer language-understanding capabilities [… and] the ability to simplify and accelerate everyday tasks”.

The lawsuit stated that “unbeknownst to investors”, Apple lacked a functional prototype of these advanced AI-based Siri features at the time of the 2024 conference and had “no reasonable basis to believe it could deliver the product it was advertising within the iPhone 16 product cycle, if ever”.

“In recent years, several of Apple’s competitors have developed and/or launched advanced AI capabilities based on large language models,” the lawsuit read. “For example, Google and Microsoft have each launched generative-AI chatbots respectively referred to as Gemini and Copilot.”

“Accordingly, Apple has felt pressure to introduce AI-based capabilities on its iPhones, and in particular to introduce advanced AI-based Siri features.”

Apple’s CEO Tim Cook, current CFO Kevan Parekh, and former CFO Luca Maestri were named alongside the company as defendants in the lawsuit.

Apple unveiled advanced AI-based Siri features at its 2024 conference on June 10, 2024, an event designed to showcase the Company’s new software and technologies, citing it as the main reason for consumers to purchase its iPhone 16 devices.

On June 9 at its 2025 Worldwide Developer Conference, Apple “Conspicuously […] failed to announce any new updates regarding advanced Siri features, according to the lawsuit.

In between the two events in March 2025, Apple had announced that it was indefinitely delaying promised updates to its Siri digital assistant, which is now expected to release in Spring 2026.

“Apple misstated the time it would take to integrate the advanced AI-based Siri features into its devices,” the lawsuit read. “Accordingly, it was highly unlikely that these features would be available for the iPhone 16. The lack of such advanced AI-based features would hurt iPhone 16 sales. As a result, Apple’s business and/or financial prospects were overstated, and the Company’s public statements were materially false and misleading at all relevant times.”

Apple shares have plummeted since reaching a record high on December 26, 2024, losing approximately U$900 billion of market value, representing almost a quarter of their total value.

This year at least three other class action lawsuits have been filed against Apple by users of iPhone 16s. These lawsuits alleged that Apple had deceived buyers over the AI features of the product and that the company had “aggressively” promoted the new features despite their still not being available.

It has recently been reported that Apple is internally considering acquiring AI startup Perplexity, which boasts a search engine and chatbot used by up to 15 million people, to help bolster its AI capabilities.

This is not the only recent controversy that Apple has faced. Last month, Minerva Analytics reported that a US district judge ruled that the company had continued anticompetitive practices on the App Store in spite of a previous injunction. This culminated in Apple being referred for a criminal contempt investigation.

In 2021, Epic Games had won the injunction to stop Apple’s anticompetitive behaviour after the court ordered Apple to allow external payment options on the App Store.

This week, fellow tech giant Amazon reaffirmed it will invest £8 billion (U$10.9 billion) in building, operating, and maintaining data centres to power AI growth in the UK by 2028. This will form part of a £40 billion investment by the company over the next three years, which Amazon claims will contribute an estimated additional £38 billion to the UK’s total GDP.

Minerva’s blog focuses on the latest developments in ESG investing and stewardship. Minerva is a global provider of sustainable stewardship solutions with over 25 years of expertise. Minerva empowers investors by providing essential tools, including ESG research and data, enabling them to navigate the intricate landscape of stewardship and proxy voting, whilst ensuring their decisions are well-informed and aligned with sustainable principles.

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