Apple (AAPL) hasn’t had a great start to the year, losing nearly 5% so far. But that hasn’t stopped analysts at Evercore ISI from calling AAPL stock their top hardware pick for 2026. The bullish catalysts sound familiar — strong product cycle and healthy consumer demand — but there’s one factor that investors desperately wanted to hear about: artificial intelligence (AI).
Apple’s Siri assistant is set to receive an AI upgrade, which has excited users around the world. This won’t be a small tweak, either. The company is carrying out a deeper integration of generative AI and striving to provide a better contextual understanding through its voice assistant. By doing so, it intends to compete with modern AI models like Gemini and ChatGPT.
While that seems far away, Apple does boast the largest user base in the world. By getting anywhere close to these models, and providing seamless access through its devices, the company could flip the game on its head and generate a huge untapped revenue source. At least that’s what the bullish thesis rides on, though previous delays in trying to perfect this technology have left investors wary.
Apple designs, manufactures and sells devices like smartphones, laptops, and tablets, among others. The company is based in Cupertino, California, but its users are present in almost every country in the world.
AAPL stock’s price has doubled over the past five years. Despite its size, the firm continues to deliver shareholder returns. However, AAPL underperformed in the last one year, registering only about half the gains of the S&P 500 Index ($SPX). In the last one month, AAPL stock is down nearly 7% while the S&P has gained almost 2%. This gives fresh entrants a good base to get in if they want to outperform the index in 2026, especially with the backdrop of Evercore’s bullish report.
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Apple’s lack of flashy AI success has kept its valuation close to its historic levels. AAPL is trading at a forward price-to-earnings multiple of 31.9 times, which is expensive but only…
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