At its Worldwide Developer Conference, Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) stock redefined what artificial intelligence means.

Apple Intelligence is a client-based, voice activated system that uses all the data you have in Apple systems to organize your life.

It’s a contrast with the centralized, brute force computation of enormous databases offered by Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) and Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG)(NASDAQ:GOOGL).

Big AI is powerful, delivering answers in the form of text, images, video, or code. But Apple Intelligence is more personal.

The Price of Apple Stock

You’re paying a different price for Apple intelligence, too. With Big AI, Cloud Czars are paying with energy, buying billions of dollars in Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) GPUs, processing enormous data sets.

Apple Intelligence is small AI. Users pay with their data and their privacy. Apple will derive answers from personal data, residing in the Apple ecosystem. This means Apple Intelligence is scaled to the digital assets being organized.

This doesn’t mean Apple isn’t investing in hardware. But most of these investments are close to the network edge.

The approach let Apple raise its dividend and stock buybacks recently without threat from its capital budget.

The Apple Intelligence announcement surprised those who were betting Apple would follow its fellow Cloud Czars into the Big AI pool. But Apple was looking for a ring to bind all its products together.

Siri is the ring, binding them together. Voice will be the interface of the future, not touch. It will unite all Apple devices, from Vision Pro to the Mac, from the iPhone to the Watch.

On the day of the WWDC keynote, investors looked askance at Apple’s plan. Upon closer examination, they cheered.

Apple stock sold for $192/share as the keynote was presented. It sold for $207 a few days later. That’s a “melt-up” of $312 billion, according to Axios.

The Real Threat

The strict control Apple has over its ecosystem has long been a target of antitrust authorities. It is a walled garden, the secret to Apple’s enormous profits, with 26% of its second quarter revenue turning into net income.

The day after the WWDC keynote, four states added themselves to a U.S. Department of Justice lawsuit alleging the iPhone is an illegal monopoly. Apple believes it’s acting in the best interest of its customers’ privacy and security.

This antitrust pushback is happening around the world. Europe imposed a fine of nearly $2 billion on Apple in March, alleging it used its app store to “box out” music streaming rivals like Spotify (NASDAQ:SPOT).

India is considering a regulatory regime similar to that of the European Union.

The partnership with OpenAI, offering ChatGPT through Apple products, with no cash upfront, is also under assault. Apple will offer access to ChatGPT from inside its operating system, answering questions its Small AI can’t handle.

Here, again, Apple may be one step ahead of governments. Governments have focused on the iPhone, while Apple Intelligence ties users to a variety of other platforms.

The EU doesn’t even consider Siri is a core platform subject to regulation.

The Bottom Line

Apple’s WWDC announcements show it’s not only ahead of the industry, but ahead of government efforts to control it.

By focusing on, and expanding, its client monopolies, Apple is taking an “asset light” approach to AI. It’s letting others take on the work of upgrading data centers with expensive Nvidia chips.

Apple is letting Large Language Models evolve, limiting user access to all but that of OpenAI. It’s using Siri to convince iPhone users they need the Watch and Vision Pro.

Steve Jobs built Apple into a technology leader. But Tim Cook has done far more to cement Apple’s leadership in society, and reward shareholders for it. His may be the bigger business legend .

As of this writing, Dana Blankenhorn had a LONG position in NVDA, MSFT, and AAPL. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer, subject to the InvestorPlace.com Publishing Guidelines.

Dana Blankenhorn has been a financial and technology journalist since 1978. He is the author of Technology’s Big Bang: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow with Moore’s Law, available at the Amazon Kindle store. Write him at danablankenhorn@gmail.com, tweet him at @danablankenhorn, or subscribe to his free Substack newsletter.