Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) spent much of 2026 fielding questions about whether it fell behind in artificial intelligence.

Bank of America now thinks the doubters have the story backwards, and it raised its price target to $380 to prove the point.

BofA Securities analyst Wamsi Mohan reiterated a Buy rating this week and lifted his target from $330, arguing the iPhone maker is set to capture what he called the “agentic smartphone opportunity.”

The most valuable platform in an AI world, Mohan said, is the one that manages “user intent, personal context, app access, permissions, identity, authentication, payments, and trust.”

Apple controls that layer through its chips and iOS, which decide how much AI runs on-device and whether an agent can act for a user in a way they trust.

BofA estimated an agentic Siri could add $15 billion to $30 billion in incremental fiscal 2030 revenue in its base case, and $40 billion to $65 billion if adoption runs hot.

The Case Against Apple

Nicholas Rodelli, legal research director at CFRA, says that “to be bullish on Apple here, you need to believe they can extend App Store tax and tolling to agentic AI.”

He calls Apple over-reliant on that “tax-taking model,” and its App Store policies “unsustainable.”

He estimates Apple could face an 8% to 9% hit to earnings power if legal challenges unwind that model.

The execution risk is real too.

A former Siri engineer put it bluntly to the Financial Times, calling Apple “an advanced hardware company that builds ‘good enough’ software,” noting it lacks the frontier models of its rivals and leans on Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Gemini to fill the gap.

Morgan Stanley’s Erik Woodring agrees the model question is settled, and not in Apple’s favor.

Earlier this month Apple agreed to a $250 million settlement over claims it oversold the Apple Intelligence features it advertised for the iPhone 16, including a Siri upgrade that shipped far later than promised.

The valuation also leaves little cushion. At roughly 37 times trailing earnings, Apple already trades well above its long-run range.

What Prediction Markets Are Saying

On Polymarket, the odds that Apple launches a genuinely new product line, something beyond another iPhone or Mac, before 2027 sit at just 30%. The market has drawn more than $280,000 in volume and resolves at the end of the year.

A separate contract pricing a foldable iPhone before 2027 trades near 84%.

Mohan once framed the whole debate himself, asking whether Apple still has a “next big thing” or has reached “the maturity stage of its innovation cycle.” For now, the market will bet on the next device, but not the next big thing.

Apple is currently trading around $311.

Image: Shutterstock