Apple’s Top AI Executive to Retire as Company Races to Close Gap in Artificial Intelligence

By Blessing Nweke

Apple’s senior vice president for machine learning and AI strategy, John Giannandrea, will step down and retire in 2026, the company announced Monday. Giannandrea, a former Google executive who joined Apple in 2018, has overseen the tech giant’s efforts to rebuild its artificial intelligence capabilities amid intensifying competition across the industry.

He will be succeeded by Amar Subramanya, who recently served as corporate vice president of AI at Microsoft following more than a decade in engineering leadership roles at Google. Unlike Giannandrea, who reported directly to CEO Tim Cook, Subramanya will report to longtime software leader Craig Federighi, signaling a shift in how Apple plans to structure its AI operations.

“AI has long been central to Apple’s strategy, and we are pleased to welcome Amar to Craig’s leadership team and to bring his extraordinary AI expertise to Apple,” Cook said in a statement.

The swift transition underscores the pressure Apple faces as rivals including Google, Meta, Microsoft and OpenAI accelerate their AI advancements. Apple has struggled to match the pace, delaying the release of its upgraded Siri earlier this year after acknowledging the new version would “take us longer than we thought.”

Cook reiterated in the company’s October earnings call that Apple expects to debut the refreshed Siri in 2026, adding that the company has already introduced “dozens of new features” through its Apple Intelligence initiative. Bloomberg has reported that Apple is targeting a spring rollout for the new voice assistant.

Though Apple currently integrates ChatGPT into iOS and macOS, those features remain limited. Reports indicate the company is negotiating deeper partnerships with Google’s Gemini, as well as models from Perplexity and Anthropic, as it seeks to expand AI capabilities across its platforms.

Apple shares have risen 13% this year, lagging behind major AI-heavy competitors but maintaining the company’s position as the world’s second-largest publicly traded firm with a $4.2 trillion market value.