Apple (AAPL, Financials) reassigned responsibility for its Siri voice assistant to a new executive as part of a broader overhaul of its artificial intelligence leadership, Bloomberg reported.
Previously heading Apple’s Vision Products Group and supervising the Vision Pro helmet’s development, Mike Rockwell will now be in charge of the team developing Siri. Bloomberg says he will answer directly to Apple’s senior vice president of software engineering, Craig Federighi.Siri is taken off of John Giannandrea, Apple’s senior vice president of machine learning and artificial intelligence strategy, under the leadership reshuffle. According to Bloomberg, the shift points to Tim Cook, the chief executive officer, perhaps losing faith in Giannandrea’s handling of general artificial intelligence initiatives.Apple has not offered a public justification for the relocation; upgrades to Siri are now anticipated in 2026, Bloomberg said.Under Rockwell, Paul Meade worked on Vision Pro hardware engineering; he will take over Vision Products Group leadership.Apple’s turn of attention to generative artificial intelligence causes the upheaval. The firm revealed “Apple Intelligence,” a package of AI-driven tools meant to increase output, including email summarizing and inbox cleaning across its devices in 2023.Apple is behind competitors like Alphabet’s (GOOG, Financials) Google, and Amazon (AMZN, Financials) in voice assistant and artificial intelligence research. Apple’s intention to catch up by including hardware-oriented expertise to overhaul its AI systems may be seen in the leadership restructure.
This article first appeared on GuruFocus.
