Apple Restructures AI division, Elevates Amar Subramanya asโฃ Siri Faces Ongoing Challenges
CUPERTINO, CA – โคJuneโค 13, 2024 โ – Apple announced a meaningful restructuring of its artificial intelligence (AI) leadership today, appointing former Microsoft AI leader Amar Subramanya โคto a newly created role โฃreporting to software engineering โhead Craigโ Federighi.โ Theโ moveโ comes as Apple navigates delays and โsetbacks in its Apple Intelligence rollout and seeks to bolster its capabilitiesโ in โgenerative AI.
Subramanya,a longtime Google engineerโค whoโค contributed to โthe advancement โof the Gemini assistant,will focus on translating AI research โคinto tangible product features,particularly for theโค anticipated personalizedโค Siri update expected next year.โข Apple CEO โฃTim Cook stated, โ”AI has long been central to Apple’s strategy, and we are pleased to welcome Amar to Craig’s leadership team.”
The reorganization also expands โฃFederighi’s responsibilities to include oversight of Apple’s foundation models, placing core AI development under his โpurview alongside operations head Sabih โKhan and services leader Eddy Cue.
This leadership shuffle โunderscores the urgencyโข Apple faces in rebuilding โits AI infrastructure asโฃ generative AI increasingly shapes consumerโ engagement across sectors like shopping, payments, and digital banking. โข
Recent monthsโ have seen Apple โgrapple โwithโฃ challenges inโค its AI โinitiatives. The company delayed โkey Apple Intelligence featuresโ for iOS and โฃiPadOSโ to ensure code stability. โInitial โreleases of AI-generated news summaries andโค message alerts faced criticism for inaccuracies,โฃ leading Apple โฃto temporarilyโ pull the feature.
Engineering difficulties โhave also hampered the developmentโ of a next-generation Siri, intended to be the foundation of Apple intelligence and power new commerce and retail experiences. Reports indicate ongoing bug fixesโฃ andโข internal adjustments to address these issues.โค Apple is reportedly โnearing โa deal possibly worth $1 billion annually to leverage Google’s more powerful AI models as a temporary โขsolution while โit worksโ to improve its in-house capabilities.