United Kingdom, July 15 -- Apple CEO Tim Cook should step down to make way for a more "product-focused" leader, a new report from LightShed Partners has said.

Analysts Walter Piecyk and Joe Galone argued that Apple's current leadership may not be suited to meet the rapidly shifting demands of the artificial intelligence (AI) era after the Cupertino-based company "badly lagged" behind rivals like Meta, Google and Microsoft in the Large Language Model (LLM) industry.

In a note written to clients and seen by Bloomberg, they said: "Missing on AI could fundamentally alter the company's long-term trajectory and ability to grow at all.

"AI will reshape industries across the global economy, and Apple risks becoming one of its casualties."

The...