Apple is reportedly shaking up its executive ranks, shortly after it delayed the personalized Siri features that it previewed at WWDC last year.
Bloomberg's Mark Gurman today said that Vision Pro chief Mike Rockwell will be taking over the Siri team at Apple, which until now was led by Apple's artificial intelligence chief John Giannandrea. Apple CEO Tim Cook has apparently "lost confidence" in Giannandrea's ability to "execute on product development," but he will remain at the company for now to oversee artificial intelligence research and development in general.
Vision Pro hardware engineer Paul Meade will be succeeding Rockwell as the head of Apple's spatial computing efforts, allowing Rockwell to focus entirely on Siri, according to the report. In his new role overseeing the Siri team, Rockwell will report to Apple's software engineering chief Craig Federighi, the report added.
Apple plans to inform employees about the executive shakeup this week, according to the report.
Apple has been facing a lot of criticism after delaying its more personalized version of Siri, with some people upset that the company chose to preview new features that were merely conceptual, rather than fully functional. It is a widely held belief that Apple is lagging behind competitors like OpenAI in the generative artificial intelligence space, and it looks like Apple is attempting to right the ship with this executive shakeup.
Apple appointing Rockwell as its new Siri head is an interesting choice, as the Vision Pro has been described as a "commercial flop" and has faced criticism of its own. Nevertheless, the Vision Pro is certainly a technological feat, so Rockwell has proven experience and could be instrumental in improving Siri's underlying technologies.
Apple said it anticipates rolling out the more personalized Siri "in the coming year."
Even the current version of Siri has attracted a lot of criticism, including from some of the most devoted Apple fans, as it sometimes struggles to answer even the most basic questions. Rockwell certainly has his work cut out for him in his new role.
