In the artificial intelligence (AI) arms race among the big tech firms, there have been two major laggards: Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) and Meta Platforms (NASDAQ: META). Apple is on this list for a lack of AI investments, while Meta Platforms is on this list for spending heavily on AI computing but having little to show for it.

The question is, can either of these two tech titans turn their AI aspirations into a cash-generating business? Let's take a look.

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Apple hasn't made the investment that its peers have

When you hear about the AI hyperscalers, Apple is notably absent. Instead of spending hundreds of billions of dollars building out data centers to develop its own AI, it was perfectly happy to sit on the sidelines, letting others do the hard work. Now that the initial phases of the AI build-out are complete, the results of this decision remain unknown.

Apple has partnered with Alphabet to integrate Gemini into its devices, but that collaboration is still being rolled out. Meanwhile, its Android competitors have already integrated AI into several aspects and have established a pretty large lead in AI capabilities, but that's nothing new with Apple.

The company has seldom been the first to launch a new product type or feature, as it often takes its time to ensure that what it launches is the best. Time will tell whether this proves possible, but with Apple waiting this long, it may not be going as well as investors hope.

As a bull case, Apple launches its AI products and includes an AI subscription that ends up being a hit among its users. That could lead to billions more in revenue and profits, making it a smart investment.

On the bear side, Apple falls behind in AI and is stuck paying massive cloud infrastructure fees to run AI workloads because its plans for on-device AI processing don't pan out.

Time will tell how these two sides fare, but Apple is currently behind in AI, and that's nothing it hasn't dealt with before.

Meta has spent big, with minimal returns

Meta Platforms has spent hundreds of billions of dollars on its AI computing capacity and is offering a free-to-use AI model. Most of the financial benefit of its investments is being felt through its advertising business, as it has integrated AI to improve functionality and ad-generation services.