Apple on Thursday disclosed its iPhone sales dipped slightly during the holiday-season quarter, signaling a sluggish start to the trendsetting company’s effort to catch up to the rest of Big Tech in the race to bring artificial intelligence to the masses.

Apple’s iPhone sales fell in the all-important December quarter, a sign that its artificial-intelligence software has yet to kick off a new cycle of growth for its most valuable product.On Thursday, Apple reported that iPhone sales for the quarter were down nearly 1% from the prior year to $69.

Apple executives on Thursday forecast relatively strong sales growth, a sign the company will recover from a dip in iPhone sales as it rolls out artificial intelligence features. The forecast comes after Apple delivered a slight drop in iPhone revenues for the holiday shopping quarter and lagged Wall Street estimates,