Apple has been named the “World’s Most Valuable Company” once more.

As of mid-afternoon Wednesday (June 12), the iPhone maker’s market value stood at $3.38 trillion, surpassing Microsoft’s $3.29 market capitalization for the first time in several months.

Apple’s stock began to rise after the firm held its annual developers conference, during which it unveiled a number of artificial intelligence (AI) features for its products.

“All of the questions about Apple’s lag in AI technology were answered at the Worldwide Developers Conference,” Michael James, managing director of equities trading at Wedbush Securities in Los Angeles, told Reuters.

“Some of the specifics about AI capabilities that are going to be integrated into the upcoming iPhones made it very apparent that there will clearly be demand for a significant upgrade cycle.”

Microsoft surpassed Apple as the world’s most valuable business earlier this year, thanks to its own advances in artificial intelligence. It represented a reversal of fortune for the two longtime competitors, as Apple had been the first business to be worth more than $1 trillion, followed by $2 trillion.

Last week, chipmaker Nvidia pushed Apple into third place, surpassing the $3 trillion market capitalization threshold as it profited from the AI surge.

However, experts told PYMNTS earlier this week that Apple’s dominance in the US phone market gives it a significant advantage when it comes to implementing AI capability.

“Apple’s dominant position, with a 60% market share in the U.S. phone market, gives it a massive advantage in rolling out AI functionality that seamlessly improves the core product and user experience,” Sunil Rao, co-founder and CEO of Tribble, stated “This integration will significantly influence consumer behavior and market competition.”

As AI is integrated into Apple’s operating system, consumers may prefer this strategy over using specific AI apps.

“This sets strong competition for some specific apps but still provides the possibility to handle complex tasks with Siri through third-party apps,” Bohdan Khomych, head of R&D commercialization at software development firm SoftServe, told PYMNTS.

“From the perspective of the foundation model, only GPT integration was announced, but there is hope to see Gemini this year,” Khomych noted, referring to Google’s AI model.