Apple Robotic Team Moves From AI Division, Signs Cook Team No Longer Trusts In Giannandrea?

Apple CEO Tim Cook seems to be starting to change the strategic direction of the company (photo: x @Starryshoot)

JAKARTA - Apple is again carrying out a massive internal reshuffle. After a embarrassing delay over the launch of the contextual Apple Intelligence feature, news has now emerged that Apple's robotics team was transferred from the AI/ML division led by John Giannandrea to the hardware division led by John Ternus.

A report from Bloomberg reveals that Apple CEO Tim Cook seems to be starting to change the company's strategic direction regarding artificial intelligence development. This change came shortly after Siri's team was moved under the leadership of Mike Rockwell, boss of Vision Pro, in an effort to revive the digital assistant.

Although John Giannandrea's position as SVP (Senior Vice President) of AI and ML has not officially changed, this move marks a shift in trust and priority. Now, the Giannandrea team will focus on building a basic AI model that becomes the foundation for future technologies such as robots and Siri, but with a more separate role from other teams.

Several sources have mentioned that this step could be the beginning of the dissolution of the total AI and ML divisions. There is speculation that Tim Cook could have moved Giannandrea to a new position, or even pushed her out of the company.

This move is referred to as an attempt to ensure that the AI team does not work too widely, and that hardware development such as robotics can be focused optimally under Ternus leadership.

This change also reflects Apple's new philosophy of AI not as a separate product, but as core infrastructure. Like the comparison between applications and operating systems, AI is positioned as a basis that supports various Apple services, not as an independent entity.

For example, the robotic arm Apple developed does use AI for data interactions and processing, but the hardware itself is not AI. The same goes for Siri who uses AI to answer questions, but not yet a pure AI system like LLM (large language model).

Whether this approach requires a special team to build a basic AI model, or each division can build their own model, is still a big question. Time will tell where Apple's strategy is and whether Giannandrea will stay.