Apple has announced a new head of AI: John Giannandrea is leaving the company
By ForGeeks
Apple has announced a staffing change in its artificial intelligence division: chief AI officer John Giannandrea, who has held the position since 2018, will leave the company in the spring. Before leaving, he will work in the role of an advisor. He will be replaced by Amar Subramanya, an AI specialist with experience at Microsoft and DeepMind, who spent 16 years at Google and led the engineering direction of Google Gemini Assistant.
According to Apple, Subramanya has deep experience in machine learning research and product development implementation, which is key to the company’s current and future AI initiatives.
How Giannandrea got involved at Apple
As senior vice president, Giannandrea reported directly to Apple CEO Tim Cook. His departure coincides with Apple facing criticism over Apple Intelligence: the iPhone’s AI features are still inferior to solutions from competitors like the Pixel and Galaxy. Some of the delays are related to Siri, the assistant that was supposed to get enhanced features along with the launch of Apple Intelligence, but they have been postponed several times.
Siri, the assistant that was supposed to get enhanced features along with the launch of Apple Intelligence, has been delayed several times.
Siri can now turn to ChatGPT to answer individual queries, but the full feature set isn’t expected until iOS 26.4.
Siri’s new AI capabilities will arrive in iOS 26.4
The update is scheduled for the spring. Siri will be able to understand screen content for the first time. For example, if a photo is open on the display, the user will be able to say, “Send this to your brother,” and the assistant will perform the action. After accessing mail, messages, photos and the calendar, Siri will be able to find information about reservations, meeting times and guest lists.
The upcoming improvements also include managing apps and performing multi-step actions. Users, for example, will be able to ask Siri to attach an edited photo to a prepared draft of an email. The updated version will run on a large language model with elements of Google’s Gemini technology.
The updated version will also include a large language model with elements of Google’s Gemini technology.
New AI division leadership structure
Amar Subramanya will become vice president of AI and report to head of software development Craig Federighi. According to Cook, Federighi already plays a key role in Apple’s AI initiatives, including the project to create a more personalized Siri, which is due out next year.
Amar Subramanya will become vice president of AI and will report to head of software development Craig Federighi.
“We’re grateful for John’s work on developing our AI business, which has helped Apple continue to innovate and improve the user experience. AI has long been part of Apple’s strategy, and we’re excited to welcome Amar to Craig’s team and leverage his AI expertise to drive further progress.”
