From the reports from Bloomberg etc, yes, it does sound like some Apple AI employees may need rallying.

Though it sounds like what they actually got was fairly in-substantive statements without a clearly articulated AI strategy.

Doesn't mean that Apple doesn't have a promising AI strategy though, if so, it wasn't communicated in this Pep Talk: so what was the point?

Perhaps to look like they are doing something? Are empty words better than no words at all?