Apple’s Glowtime event shows that the iPhone 16 is very much

If it does, Apple “will be the gatekeeper of the consumer AI revolution,” Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives wrote in a note on Friday. The event starts at 1pm ET on Monday at Apple Park in California and will be streamed live on Apple’s website.

Apple is said to be training store employees on AI features in preparation for the launch. And last week, chief marketing officer Greg Joswiak teased the Glowtime event on X.

Analysts hailed the launch as key to triggering a iPhone upgrade boom; after all, Apple Intelligence will only be fully available on the iPhone 15s and newer models — like the iPhone 16, which many expect Apple to unveil on Monday.

“There’s a lot riding on these new iPhones,” said Gadjo Sevilla, a technology analyst at Emarketer, a sister company of Business Insider. “They are Apple’s most profitable product category and also critical to the company’s expanding universe of services and subscriptions, which is now its second most profitable business.”

The tech giant is also expected to launch new AirPods and Apple Watch models. The watches are set to have larger screens but be scaled down. The mid-tier AirPods could get noise cancellation, and the lower-end AirPods could also get updates.

“We believe enthusiasm for Apple Intelligence can accelerate hardware replacement and enable market share gains for iPhone, iPad and Mac,” Oppenheimer strategists said in a note.

Analysts at Wedbush said that with about 1.5 billion iPhones in use, Apple is preparing to enter a “golden upgrade cycle” after iPhone sales fell in its last quarter.

But it will have to maintain landing on Monday’s event and continue to deliver in the coming months.