By Rolfe Winkler

Apple is shaking up its top AI ranks, poaching a Microsoft executive and reorganizing after announcing the retirement of its top AI leader, whose tenure was defined by the company's artificial intelligence struggles.

John Giannandrea, the iPhone-maker's senior vice president in charge of AI strategy, who had reported directly to Chief Executive Tim Cook, is stepping down, the company announced on Monday, and his duties will be split among other senior vice presidents responsible for software engineering, services and operations. He will remain in an advisory role until his retirement next spring.

Amar Subramanya, who helped oversee Google's Gemini chatbot before decamping to Microsoft earlier this year, will join Apple as vice president of AI, one rung lower on the organization chart, reporting to the company's head of software, Craig Federighi.

The reorganization heralds a new era for Apple's AI work, which has failed to keep up with rivals after the company announced a number of planned features in 2024 that it hasn't been able to release.

But it remains to be seen if Apple can paint a compelling AI picture for customers and employees. Both groups have complained about the company's lack of direction in the defining technology of the decade.

Giannandrea, an outsider who spent most of his career at Google before coming to Apple in 2018, had a tumultuous run at Apple. While he emphasized a research-driven culture that was relatively unusual for Apple, he never articulated a coherent vision that would help the company catch up in AI, people familiar with his efforts say.

After falling behind, Apple is testing a version of Gemini to power the next version of its personal assistant Siri, according to people familiar with the effort.

The move is an acknowledgment that bringing in an outsider to create a new AI fief at Apple ultimately failed the key test of success at Apple: delivering products that consumers want to buy.

Giannandrea had been in charge of Siri, which can still handle only basic, one-off queries 14 years after Apple launched it. Rival chatbots can have humanlike conversations and answer complex questions. Apple executives said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal that it has delayed some Siri features because they don't meet the company's quality standards.

Apple earlier stripped Giannandrea of his responsibility for Siri, putting the chatbot under another vice president who reports to Federighi, both of whom have a track record of shipping products to consumers.

Giannandrea's research focus helped Apple recruit AI researchers with academic backgrounds. His team published one of the more influential AI papers of the past year, which argued that large-reasoning models only simulate thought and struggle with complex tasks.

But Apple ultimately needed to deliver compelling software and hardware products for its users, something it has failed to do in the AI realm.

Apple's struggles in AI go beyond any issues with Giannandrea's leadership. People who have worked on AI for the company complain that Apple can't build leading AI products because its emphasis on privacy limits their access to data and its relatively small capital budget limits their access to computing resources.

News Corp, owner of The Wall Street Journal, has a commercial agreement to supply news through Apple services.

Write to Rolfe Winkler at Rolfe.Winkler@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

December 01, 2025 20:50 ET (01:50 GMT)

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