Tech giant Apple recently made another significant adjustment to its artificial intelligence (AI) department. Sources say Apple plans to move its secretive robotics division from AI chief John Giannandrea to hardware engineering senior vice president John Ternus later this month.
This follows the March move of the underperforming Siri voice assistant business away from Giannandrea. These changes highlight Apple's efforts to catch up with AI leaders like Google and OpenAI.
Despite the restructuring, former Google executive Giannandrea will continue to oversee much of Apple's core AI work. Sources say the change aims to allow his team to focus more on fundamental AI research and development.
Apple declined to comment. Previously, the Siri engineering team was taken over by Mike Rockwell, who is responsible for the Vision Pro headset's hardware and software development. While taking over Siri, Rockwell retained control of the visionOS operating system and is replacing Siri's original management with core members from the Vision Pro team.
Compared to Siri, the robotics team is more secretive within Apple. The team is led by veteran executive Kevin Lynch, who previously oversaw Apple Watch software and the now-terminated self-driving car project. The team is exploring how AI can power new devices, potentially opening up entirely new product categories for Apple.
The robotics project reportedly plans to launch a desktop robot that can move an iPad-like display with a robotic arm. Longer-term goals include developing mobile robots, similar to Amazon's Astro, that can roam around a home. These products are designed as telepresence devices, primarily for video calls.
Moving the robotics team to the hardware division suggests Apple wants to more closely integrate AI research with hardware product development, accelerating the incorporation of cutting-edge AI into future Apple devices.
