Apple is making a major leadership change. John Giannandrea is stepping down from his role as the head of machine learning and artificial intelligence strategy, reports Mark Gurman for Bloomberg (via MacRumors). He joined the company eight years ago to fix Siri and build out new smart features. Now, Apple is quietly moving on without him. The transition happens next week as the hardware giant shifts its focus to new artificial intelligence projects.
The artificial intelligence leader exits the company after eight years
Giannandrea arrived in 2018 to help Apple catch up in the smart assistant race. His main job was to make Siri smarter and more useful for everyday tasks. He built a large team dedicated to machine learning.
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Over time, his role expanded to cover almost all automated software features across iOS and macOS. However, the tech landscape shifted rapidly over the last two years. Newer generative models started to outpace older systems.
Apple recently chose to partner with outside companies like OpenAI to power its newest tools. This shift in strategy left Giannandrea with a shrinking set of responsibilities.
Apple reshapes its software teams to focus on new partnerships
The departure is happening very quietly. Apple has not hosted a big press event or released a public statement about the exit. Internal memos show his final day is set for next week.
His massive engineering group will likely be split up and handed over to other executives like Craig Federighi. The company is leaning heavily into cloud-based models and third-party integrations right now.
Shuffling the leadership deck makes sense as it tries to stay competitive globally. The move marks the end of a specific era for how Apple builds its smart features internally.
AI is irrelevant to many users. Siri has been of zero use to me. After a time of experimentation, I’ve begun disabling AI options. They’re unnecessary complications.
Not to mention the Intellectual Property thefts AI greed has seeded along the way. It’s not worth the media airtime. It’s just more capitalist BS aimed at a too broad demographic.