Apple just named a new AI chief with Google and Microsoft expertise, as John Giannandrea steps down

Apple just named a new AI chief with Google and Microsoft expertise, as John Giannandrea steps down

Apple just named a new AI chief with Google and Microsoft expertise, as John Giannandrea steps down. Welcome to Pressure Points. Our topic is the news that the head of Apple AI will retire in the spring of 2026. Since he joined Apple in 2018

Don't catch the Mateo pronunciation since then. I've always called him John John. So John came to Apple as head in 2018. He was the head of AI at Google. Remember, in 2017, Google talked about its future

that they were an AI-first company. They mentioned it 17 times. We co., united them on the earnings call. So John was a huge part of what Google really had

around the framework that they had around Apple's AI from 2015 to 2018. I think it's a huge disappointment. But here's some quick context on who John is.

And uh, let's hit three key takeaways. The first thing is to believe that the timing of the new Siri is on track. Now, it wasn't mentioned in the call, but the fact is

that he's going to retire in the spring of next year, which is consistent with the timing of the rumors of the new Siri, which is his code for his new all-Apple intelligence,

which seems like when the lineup is coming out, it would make sense that he would leave it along with it. So, I actually see that as a positive sign.

You see Apple shares trading higher after hours on the news. So maybe people are kind of putting those same things together.

I think the other thing is that maybe it doesn't matter that maybe he was asked to retire and I think that means

that cookies has been pushing AI very intensely about his last years at Apple and I believe one of the reasons why he was asked to leave is certainly the body of work that has been left behind in the last seven years

especially given the context of what AI has done. And been a leader and done a lot of uh .AI vision work,  and he hasn't gotten any of that yet

and so is the fact that he's 60 years old, and usually if you're in the good graces of Apple leadership, you usually stick around until then.

In the mid-60s, so I think there’s reason to believe he was less driven by Cook, and I think that goes to his intensity about getting AI right

And the third is the notion that we’re moving more towards AI than Apple. The new head of AI is Amar; I forgot his last name. I’m going to have a hard time pronouncing it,  either,

who used to be the vice president of AI at Microsoft. That doesn’t mean he ran AI at Microsoft, but he was high up in the AI ​​ranks at Microsoft

, and before that, he worked for 16 years at Google and some Gemini, early Gemini initiatives. And so he comes with a lot of respect.

And I’m going to end my pressure points with Cook’s comment that ended Apple’s press release, which he refers to this moment as an exciting new chapter

as Apple solidifies its commitment to shaping the future of AI for its customers everywhere. And so this idea of ​​an exciting new chapter, I think, really speaks to the mandate

that Amar has to push Apple forward when it comes to AI. From Pressure Points, I'm Jane. Goodbye Siri should be as good, if not better, than the competition. - Oh, and I think, eventually, it should be. It certainly is-- but it's not yet. - That's definitely our mission.

I'm here at Apple Park in Cupertino, and I'm sitting here right now with Apple executives, Craig Federighi and Greg Jozsef, talking about the interview.

Siri delays and the future of AI for the company. Stay tuned for the full interview soon. Last year, you announced a smart AI-powered Siri. Where is that?

 We really had a two-phase plan, two versions of an architecture to deliver a great Siri. And as we got to the conference, we had V1 show some of the core capabilities at the conference,

which showed the core capabilities of the software. We were able to demonstrate there and show what's to come. But in terms of quality,

we needed it, we had some work to do, but then, as you get off the beaten path, and we know with Siri, it's open to what you can ask it to do

and the data that might be on your device that we were able to use into really personal information, we were able to really get that trust in the time we thought we had.

But there was a working version of it? It wasn't just-- oh yeah. Yeah. - vaporware?- Oh, no, no, no, no, no, of course, no, we were filming real working software with a real big language model,

with real semantic search. That's what you saw.- Okay. - Yeah, there was this narrative there that, yeah, it was just demoware. No, it was-- yeah.

This was again something that we thought, as Craig said, would actually ship by the end of the year. Look, we don't want to disappoint customers.

We never do. But it would have been more disappointing to have felt like our quality had been compromised, our quality had been compromised. It was unacceptable. So we did

what we thought was the best decision. I rebuilt it. - It's great that you set this high bar, but you're also Apple. I mean, you have more engineers

than most companies, probably more than any company. Why couldn't you make it work? - I mean, this is new technology. I think, when it can be automated again,

it can be automated. Right now. And we wanted to be the first. We wanted to do it the best way. And as I said,

We had very promising early results and early versions working, but not to the level where we started to live with it internally and feel,

Like, "This doesn't work well enough to be an Apple product. Our industry and certainly, our society for decades to come. We want to get it right. No need to rush in with the wrong features and the wrong product

Just the first one.- A lot of people associate Apple and AI with Siri. - I mean, 10 years from now. - Sure.- And so there's a real expectation that Siri should be as good,

if not better, than the competition.- Oh, and I think, eventually, it should be. It certainly is-- but it's not right now.- That's certainly our mission.

Yeah, but that's our mission, you know? We set out to show people where Apple's value went last year. There, an experience that would be integrated into everything you do. Is,

Not a bolt-on chatbot side, something that's personal, something private. We started building some of these and providing some of these capabilities. I kind of appreciate the fact

that people really want the next version of Siri, and we really want to provide it for them. But we want to do it the right way, when we come to the right way,

so right? We want to make sure that we have a lot of that before we start talking about dates, with almost 60 years of experience in this company.

-Yeah, yeah. - You've seen the company go through the highs; where are you at now? Where do you think you are at now? There's a lot of emotion here that Apple is on its back foot.

I think you're right to bring up that point, because I think when you've been through different waves, you become very used to the ups and downs.

And I think we're looking really good. Naive, but I remember that Steve came back and he said to us, "Look, what we have to do is make great products

and tell people about them. And if we do that, everything else will fall into place." And it turns out that's the case. And we make great products, and we think

that our products are extraordinarily good right now and are getting better. And then, I'll tell people that if we're really good about these products, we'll tell people about them. They, everything else will fall into place.