Apple has appointed AI researcher Amar Subramaniam, a longtime Google executive who was most recently corporate vice president of AI at Microsoft, as its new VP of AI. The company also announced that the current AI executive, John Giannandrea, will retire in 2026.
Subramaniam, whom Apple describes as a “renowned AI researcher”, spent 16 years at Google, where he was head of engineering for Gemini. He left Google for Microsoft earlier this year. In a press release, Apple said Subramaniam will report to Craig Federighi and “lead key areas including Apple Foundation models, ML research, and AI security and evaluation.”
It’s not entirely surprising that Apple is shaking up its AI leadership. Giannandrea joined Apple in 2018 after a stint at Google, which included vice president of search. While his appointment was seen as a major coup for Apple at the time, the company has since suffered some significant setbacks. Most notably, it failed to deliver the more personalized, AI-focused version of Siri that it previewed last year. Giannandrea, who oversaw Siri for years, has shouldered much of the blame for the delay. bloomberg It was reported earlier this year that Apple CEO Tim Cook had “lost confidence in AI chief John Giannandrea’s ability to execute on product development” and instead put other executives in charge of Siri.
In a statement, Cook said he was “grateful” for Giannandrea’s contributions to the company and credited Federighi for leading the way on the revised Siri. “In addition to expanding his leadership team and AI responsibilities with the addition of Amar, Craig has played a key role in advancing our AI efforts, including overseeing our work to bring a more personalized Siri to users next year.”
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