Apple Updates Leadership Page to Include New AI Chief John Giannandrea

Apple today updated its Apple Leadership page to include John Giannandrea, who now serves as Apple's Chief of Machine Learning and AI Strategy.

Apple hired Giannandrea back in April, stealing him away from Google where he ran the search and artificial intelligence unit.

appleaichief
Giannandrea is leading Apple's AI and machine learning teams, reporting directly to Apple CEO Tim Cook. He has taken over leadership of Siri, which was previously overseen by software engineering chief Craig Federighi.

Apple told TechCrunch that it is combining its Core ML and Siri teams under Giannandrea. The structure of the two teams will remain intact, but both will now answer to Giannandrea.

Under his leadership, Apple will continue to build its AI/ML teams, says TechCrunch, focusing on general computation in the cloud alongside data-sensitive on-device computations.

Giannandrea spent eight years at Google before joining Apple, and before that, he founded Tellme Networks and Metaweb Technologies.

Apple's hiring of Giannandrea in April came amid ongoing criticism of Siri, which many have claimed has serious shortcomings in comparison to AI offerings from companies like Microsoft, Amazon, and Google due to Apple's focus on privacy.


In 2018, Apple is improving Siri through a new Siri Shortcuts feature that's coming in iOS 12, which is designed to let users create multi-step tasks using both first and third-party apps that can be activated through Siri.

Popular Stories

New Things Your iPhone Can Do in iOS 18

20 New Things Your iPhone Can Do in iOS 18.2

Monday December 16, 2024 8:55 am PST by
Apple released iOS 18.2 in the second week of December, bringing the second round of Apple Intelligence features to iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 models. This update brings several major advancements to Apple's AI integration, including completely new image generation tools and a range of Visual Intelligence-based enhancements. Apple has added a handful of new non-AI related feature controls as...
iphone 16 apple intelligence

Apple Drops Plans for iPhone Hardware Subscription Service

Wednesday December 18, 2024 11:39 am PST by
Apple is no longer planning to launch a hardware subscription service that would let customers "subscribe" to get a new iPhone each year, reports Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. Gurman first shared rumors about Apple's work on a hardware subscription service back in 2022, and at the time, he said that Apple wanted to develop a simple system that would allow customers to pay a monthly fee to gain...
iPhone 17 Pro Dual Tone Feature 1

iPhone 17 Pro Rumored to Stick With 'Triangular' Camera Design

Wednesday December 18, 2024 2:36 am PST by
Contrary to recent reports, the iPhone 17 Pro will not feature a horizontal camera layout, according to the leaker known as "Instant Digital." In a new post on Weibo, the leaker said that a source has confirmed that while the appearance of the back of the iPhone 17 Pro has indeed changed, the layout of the three cameras is "still triangular," rather than the "horizontal bar spread on the...
elevation lab airtag battery

Your AirTag's Battery Will Last for Up to 10 Years With Elevation Lab's New TimeCapsule Enclosure

Wednesday December 18, 2024 10:05 am PST by
Elevation Lab today announced the launch of TimeCapsule, an innovative and simple solution for increasing the battery life of Apple's AirTag. Priced at $20, TimeCapsule is an AirTag enclosure that houses two AA batteries that offer 14x more battery capacity than the CR2032 battery that the AirTag runs on. It works by attaching the AirTag's upper housing to the built-in custom contact in the...
apple tv 4k yellow bg feature

New Apple TV Rumored to Launch Next Year With These Features

Tuesday December 17, 2024 9:02 am PST by
The current Apple TV 4K was released more than two years ago, so the streaming device is becoming due for a hardware upgrade soon. Fortunately, it was recently rumored that a new Apple TV will launch at some point next year. Below, we recap rumors about the next-generation Apple TV. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman last week reported that Apple has been working on its own combined Wi-Fi and...
blackmagic vision pro

Blackmagic Debuts $30K 3D Camera for Capturing Video for Vision Pro

Monday December 16, 2024 4:17 pm PST by
Blackmagic today announced that its URSA Cine Immersive camera is now available for pre-order, with deliveries set to start late in the first quarter of 2025. Blackmagic says that this is the world's first commercial camera system designed to capture 3D content for the Vision Pro. The URSA Cine Immersive camera was first introduced in June, but it has not been available for purchase until...
mac pro creativity

Apple Launched the Controversial 'Trashcan' Mac Pro 11 Years Ago Today

Thursday December 19, 2024 7:00 pm PST by
Apple launched the controversial "trashcan" Mac Pro eleven years ago today, introducing one of its most criticized designs that persisted through a period of widespread discontentment with the Mac lineup. The redesign took the Mac Pro in an entirely new direction, spearheaded by a polished aluminum cylindrical design that became unofficially dubbed the "trashcan" in the Mac community. All of ...
iPhone 17 Slim Feature

'iPhone 17 Air' With 'Major' Design Changes and 19-Inch MacBook Detailed in New Report

Sunday December 15, 2024 9:47 am PST by
Apple is planning a series of "major design" and "format changes" for iPhones over the next few years, according to The Wall Street Journal's Aaron Tilley and Yang Jie. The paywalled report published today corroborated the widely-rumored "iPhone 17 Air" with an "ultrathin" design that is thinner than current iPhone models. The report did not mention a specific measurement, but previous...

Top Rated Comments

macduke Avatar
84 months ago
Seems like these one off hirings are a publicity stunt to appease shareholders rather than to actually improve Siri because not much if any has changed...

https://www.reddit.com/r/SiriFail/
Or, you know, you could give the guy more than three freaking months to massively overhaul one of the original AI assistants with one of the largest install bases in the world. Siri shortcuts and integration into third party apps is already one of the biggest leaps forward that I can remember and that's shipping in September. Sure Siri isn't great but give the guy a break. Honestly.
Score: 14 Votes (Like | Disagree)
TimmeyCook Avatar
84 months ago
Seems like these one off hirings are a publicity stunt to appease shareholders rather than to actually improve Siri because not much if any has changed...

https://www.reddit.com/r/SiriFail/
Yes, let’s pretend that Google’s and other competitors things aren’t worse if not equally terrible...

Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
mi7chy Avatar
84 months ago
Seems like these one off hirings are a publicity stunt to appease shareholders rather than to actually improve Siri because not much if any has changed...

https://www.reddit.com/r/SiriFail/
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
H3LL5P4WN Avatar
84 months ago
Every time I try to mentally pronounce his name, I come up with:

Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Baymowe335 Avatar
84 months ago
Shortcomings due to Apple's focus on privacy?

Or shortcomings because they thought they knew what users would want to use Siri for, never expecting a) a competitor would release a product that b) went so far beyond in capabilities that Siri was designed to do...

and now Apple is scrambling (still) to catch up.
Show me one piece of data that indicates any shortcomings in Siri affects Apple's sales or overall strategy.

There is a lot of conjecture that voice assistant superiority means something, but show me the data. I really don't think Apple cares much about what Google Assistant does that incremental to Siri, because it's just not all that useful from a day to day perspective or even that evident to the average user.

Now show me evidence that Apple isn't making huge strides in AI that could be unleashed when it does become important.
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
DNichter Avatar
84 months ago
This is good. I am happy with the hire as obviously Google has some smart people, but he will be building services and features that respect their users' privacy and won't be centered around data mining and advertising. I'd think this would be more appealing.
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)