According to the report, Apple has failed miserably in its attempts to provide a compelling AI product, to the point where even its own staff members now mock it.
More precisely, the group receiving the most mockery is the AI and machine-learning group. Its problems only got worse after Apple revealed that it would have to postpone its eagerly anticipated next round of AI improvements for Siri until 2026.
Apple engineers outside the group cruelly nicknamed it “AIMLess,” because its leadership was being questioned more and more and it appeared to have more failures than successes. The moniker is also a dig at AI/ML’s deposed leaders.
In conjunction with the postponement, Apple informed employees that AI leader John Giannandrea will no longer be overseeing the Siri AI project. Giannandrea was known for being laid-back, calm, and non-confrontational, whilst his subordinate Robby Walker was chastised for lacking ambition and being overly risk-averse. According to the study, more than half a dozen former employees from Giannandrea and Walker’s group blamed the project’s problems on bad leadership.
Craig Federighi, head of software engineering, will take Giannandrea’s post. Walker’s responsibilities will be taken on by executive Mike Rockwell, who worked on Apple’s mixed reality Vision Pro headset. Since 2012, Federighi has been in charge of Apple’s engineering group, where he has established a solid reputation for effectiveness and execution. The Information claims that he has a stern and demanding leadership style, which is the reverse of Giannandrea’s.
The two influential people frequently clashed, and animosity between the software group—which had its own team of AI engineers—and the Siri group grew. The rift was widened by the launch of OpenAI’s ChatGPT: former engineers claim that Federighi’s team looked into using large language models to enhance the iPhone right away, but Gianandrea’s team did not react with urgency.
The Siri team faltered at a crucial point in the AI race where decisiveness was required. After hinting at significant Siri updates at Apple’s annual developers conference, Giannandrea and her team were unable to decide whether to create a larger LLM that would run on the cloud to manage more complicated activities or one that would run locally on a user’s iPhone. Ultimately, they opted for Plan C, which involved creating a single, massive model to manage everything, according to the report. This decision reversed the company’s pledge to retain Siri’s software on-device and set it up for a delayed deployment.
The situation hasn’t appeared any better since. Many consumers thought Apple Intelligence was at best mediocre after all the hoopla. Significant criticism was also directed at Apple after the company had to discontinue a tool that was used to summarize news headlines because it was consistently reporting them incorrectly.
While many in the firm are confident that new leadership will be able to salvage Siri’s failed AI facelift, even Apple will face an uphill battle to regain its footing in the AI race.
