John Ternus will begin his reign as Apple's new CEO in just two weeks, and investors shouldn't be surprised if he changes the iPhone maker's spending strategy to boost its artificial-intelligence software.

Ternus will take over as CEO from Tim Cook on Sept. 1. Cook has been CEO since August 2011, and he is widely viewed as having had a successful run at the helm. The stock has had a total return of 2,740% under his leadership, and the company's market capitalization has surged from $346.4 billion to $4.63 trillion, according to Dow Jones Market Data.

"Tim Cook took Apple from a company driven by a small number of product cycles into an institution capable of producing growth, cash flow, customer loyalty, and innovation at enormous scale and [product] complexity," BofA Security analyst Wamsi Mohan wrote in a note on Thursday. He noted that Cook's main focuses included growing Apple's services business, creating a sticky ecosystem of products that keeps customers coming back, and emphasizing privacy on its devices and platforms.

"We expect much of the core of Apple to remain unchanged under incoming CEO John Ternus," Mohan said.

But Ternus might change at least one long-standing strategy that has helped distinguished Apple from its megacap tech peers.

Apple announced when reporting fiscal second-quarter earnings in April that it would no longer provide net cash neutral as a formal target, and will instead independently evaluate cash and debt. Apple originally introduced the net cash neutral plan in 2018. At the time, the company had $163 billion in "net cash," or cash plus investments minus debt. To lower this, Apple decided to get net cash down through returns of cash through share buybacks and dividends.

"Apple has moved away from a net cash neutral objective, which in our opinion, could signal a period of higher investment in R&D, Capex, and larger M&A," Mohan said. He added that, while more spending and M&A is not something that Apple focused on under Cook's leadership, the company might need to make a change to keep up with the accelerating speed of innovation in the age of AI.

Barron's has reached out to Apple for comment.

Apple has already been spending more to improve its AI offerings. It increased R&D investments by 32% to $11.7 billion in the fiscal third quarter, a move that pushed operating expenses up by 23% to $19.1 billion.

But the company still spends significantly less than other massive tech companies. Amazon.com, for example, reported second-quarter capex of $54 billion. Amid such massive spending that eats into peers' free cash flow, some investors have been pleased with Apple's restraint.

An increase in spending might spook some shareholders, but Apple needs to start pushing out strong AI updates to get both Wall Street and customers excited. That might be enough of a reason for Ternus to open Apple's wallet wider.