Apple recently made a rare high-level executive reshuffle to revitalize its lagging AI projects. CEO Tim Cook lost confidence in AI head John Giannandrea, appointing Vision Pro head Mike Rockwell to take over Siri. This adjustment highlights Apple's urgency in catching up with competitors in the AI field.
Rockwell will report directly to software chief Craig Federighi, completely removing Siri from Giannandrea's purview. Paul Meade, a hardware engineer, will take over Rockwell's previous responsibilities with the Vision Pro team. While Giannandrea retains AI research responsibilities, his power has been significantly diluted, suggesting a decline in influence.
Bloomberg notes that Rockwell excels in Vision Pro hardware breakthroughs but lacks AI team management experience. Cook likely aims to integrate AI more closely into product development, but team integration, technological maturity, and market competition remain significant challenges.
Apple's AI platform, "Apple Intelligence," experienced delays in features advertised for the iPhone 16 due to technological immaturity, resulting in a 14% year-to-date drop in the company's stock price. AI was a key topic at the internal "Top 100" executive meeting, where Cook expressed concerns about the current team's ability to deliver products. Over the past year, Apple's AI team faced repeated setbacks in Siri development, with new features showcased at the 2024 WWDC repeatedly delayed, even causing "anger and embarrassment" among internal employees.
In response to these challenges, Apple's senior management held an emergency meeting acknowledging that the development progress of some features was "much slower" than expected. Giannandrea candidly described the project delays as "ugly" at the meeting, but didn't offer concrete solutions.
