Apple recruits AI veteran Amar Subramanya from Google and Microsoft to lead Foundation Models and ML research as John Giannandrea announces his 2026 retirement.
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a veteran researcher with leadership experience at both Google and Microsoft—as its new vice president of AI 🤖. The move comes alongside the announcement that John Giannandrea, Apple’s current AI executive, is set to retire in 2026 🏁.
Characterized by Apple as a “renowned AI researcher” 🧐, Subramanya brings deep experience to Cupertino 📚. He spent 16 years at Google, where he served as head of engineering for Gemini ✨, before moving to Microsoft earlier this year 💻. According to Apple’s press release 📢, Subramanya will report directly to Craig Federighi and is tasked with “leading critical areas, including Apple Foundation Models, ML research, and AI Safety and Evaluation 🛡️.”
This leadership shakeup 🔄 doesn’t come as a complete shock ⚡. Giannandrea’s arrival in 2018, following his tenure as Google’s VP of search 🔍, was originally hailed as a major coup. However, the company has since navigated choppy waters 🌊, most notably failing to ship the more personalized, AI-driven version of Siri 🎙️ that was previewed last year. As the overseer of Siri, Giannandrea shouldered much of the blame for these setbacks ⚠️. Earlier this year, Bloomberg reported that CEO Tim Cook had “lost confidence 📉 in the ability of AI head John Giannandrea to execute on product development,” leading to other executives taking the reins on Siri 🛠️.
In a prepared statement, Cook said he was “thankful” 🙏 for Giannandrea’s contributions 🏆, though he explicitly credited Federighi with steering the revamped Siri project 🚀. “In addition to growing his leadership team and AI responsibilities with Amar’s joining, Craig has been instrumental in driving our AI efforts 🧠, including overseeing our work to bring a more personalized Siri to users next year 📱.”
