Microsoft has briefly overtaken Apple’s market cap. Credit: Koshiro K/shutterstock

Microsoft has momentarily overtaken Apple‘s value on the stock market as its investment and activity into AI technology begins to pay off.

Microsoft’s closing market cap on Thursday (11 December) was $2.859trn, whilst Apple’s stock closed at 0.3% lower achieving a market cap of $2.886trn. During the day, Microsoft’s market cap was briefly $2.903trn. This marks the first time a company has overtaken Apple’s value since 2021.

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Microsoft has been a vocal backer of OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, having first investing into the company in 2019.

Microsoft has since achieved a 49% stake in the company alongside the rights to commercialise OpenAI’s technology. The viral release of ChatGPT in November 2022 has since spurred a frenzy of funding and news coverage in generative AI technology.

According to its news data base, research analyst company GlobalData recorded that Microsoft was the most mentioned company in news articles relating to AI, whilst Apple was the fifth.

Apple was also not present in the top contenders for patent activity in 2023.

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Microsoft was the third most active US company in both patent applications and publications between January 2020 and August 2023.

Apple’s absence from the AI theme has not gone unnoticed.

Reports from July 2023 alleged that Apple had been working on its own large language model to challenge ChatGPT, but no official release has since been made by the company.

Apple CEO Tim Cook stated in May 2023 that the company would be “thoughtful” in its future applications of AI into products and commented that there were still “issues that need to be sorted” before diving into AI.

Our signals coverage is powered by GlobalData’s Thematic Engine, which tags millions of data items across six alternative datasets — patents, jobs, deals, company filings, social media mentions and news — to themes, sectors and companies. These signals enhance our predictive capabilities, helping us to identify the most disruptive threats across each of the sectors we cover and the companies best placed to succeed.