David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | getty images
John Giannandrea, who had held the position since joining the company in 2018, will be replaced by AI researcher Amar Subramanya, who most recently worked for Microsoft and was previously part of Google’s DeepMind AI unit, according to his LinkedIn profile.
Giannandrea was a senior vice president and reported to Apple CEO Tim Cook. Apple said he will continue to serve as a consultant until he retires next spring.
The change comes as experts this year have said Apple is lagging behind its tech peers in artificial intelligence, a tech area that has been reinvigorated by OpenAI since it launched ChatGPT in 2022.
Apple Intelligence, which was intended to put Apple on par with AI leaders like OpenAI and Google, has not been well reviewed by users and critics. Earlier this year, one of its most important aspects, a significantly improved Siri assistant, was delayed to 2026, indicating development challenges.
Subramaniam will serve as Apple’s vice president of AI and report to software chief Craig Federighi, the company said.
Cook said in a statement that Federighi is already playing a key role in Apple’s AI efforts.
“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,” Cook said in a statement.
Subramaniam will lead teams working on Apple’s foundation models, research, and AI security. Apple said the other teams previously under Giannandrea will move under COO Sabih Khan and services chief Eddy Cue.
Although Apple shares are up 16% in 2025, they have lagged behind many other big tech companies as investors say the iPhone maker has lagged behind its peers who are investing billions in AI data centers, chips and frontier models.
Apple said in August that it was “significantly increasing” the amount it spends on AI, and Cook has said it is a “deep” technology. Apple has signed a deal with pioneer OpenAI to integrate ChatGPT into some of its products like Siri.
But Apple is playing a different game from companies like Microsoft, Google and Meta. It is spending very little on infrastructure for technology. Apple also prefers to run its AI on its own devices rather than communicating on more powerful computers in the cloud.
This year Apple also saw its famous hardware designer Jony Ive, who helped late co-founder Steve Jobs invent the iPhone, sell his startup io to OpenAI for $6.4 billion with the intention of helping AI labs release their own hardware.
Analysts say Apple has built a sense of loyalty among its customers since the iPhone launched in 2007, but AI-powered hardware is on its way, with Ive and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman saying last month that they have already completed their first prototypes and could reveal them in two years or less.
Watch: DA Davidson’s Gil Luria says Apple will gain more AI functionality over time
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