Apple experienced a major internal shake-up related to Siri last month, part of the fallout of its delayed Siri upgrades, according to a new report from The Information.
Poor leadership within Apple’s AI and machine-learning group is blamed for the company’s struggles with Siri’s AI makeover. More than half a dozen former Apple employees who worked in the AI/ML group led by Giannandrea described poor leadership as the reason for its execution problems, singling out Robby Walker for lacking ambition and risk-taking in designing future Siri versions.
The AI group’s relaxed culture and execution struggles earned it the nickname “AIMLess” among engineers inside Apple, highlighting the perceived lack of ambition within the team. Apple’s struggles in AI seem partly tied to its “militant stance on user privacy,” but poor leadership played a significant role.
Apple faced criticism for demoing Siri upgrades at WWDC without having functional prototypes. According to the report, the Siri demo where the assistant was asked about her mom’s flight landing and lunch plans was a surprise to the Siri team, as they had never seen working versions of the capabilities. At the time, the only new feature from the demonstration that was activated for test devices was a pulsing, colorful ribbon that appeared on the edges of the iPhone’s screen when a user invoked Siri.
This revelation is significant, as Apple historically only shows features and products at its conferences that are already working on test devices and have been vetted by the marketing team to ensure they can be released on time. The fact that Apple was able to ship some new Siri features in iOS 18.1 and 18.2 is notable, given the lack of readiness demonstrated at WWDC.
Craig Federighi’s software team has developed an ‘Intelligent Systems’ division, considered responsible for many of the released Apple Intelligence features. This team, led by Federighi, is viewed internally as having a strong track record of shipping products. Meanwhile, the AI/ML team continues to operate under Giannandrea, potentially setting up future clashes between Federighi and Giannandrea’s teams.
Federighi has reportedly changed a significant AI policy for Siri development, now allowing Apple engineers to use open-source third-party models in addition to internal models. This shift marks a departure from the previous approach, where engineers were directed to build features only using internal models. The change is seen as a positive step, potentially enabling more rapid progress in Siri development.
