Gurman: Tim Cook Has Put Mike Rockwell in Charge of Siri, Reporting to Craig Federighi

Mark Gurman, with a blockbuster scoop for Bloomberg:

Apple Inc. is undergoing a rare shake-up of its executive ranks, aiming to get its artificial intelligence efforts back on track after months of delays and stumbles, according to people familiar with the situation.

Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook has lost confidence in the ability of AI head John Giannandrea to execute on product development, so he’s moving over another top executive to help: Vision Pro creator Mike Rockwell. In a new role, Rockwell will be in charge of the Siri virtual assistant, according to the people, who asked not to be identified because the moves haven’t been announced.

Rockwell will report to software chief Craig Federighi, removing Siri completely from Giannandrea’s command. Apple is poised to announce the changes to employees this week. The iPhone maker’s senior leaders — a group known as the Top 100 — just met at a secretive, annual offsite gathering to discuss the future of the company. Its AI efforts were a key talking point at the summit, Bloomberg News has reported. [...]

My quick take on this is that it’s a turf battle that Craig Federighi just won. It’s not just putting a new executive in charge of Siri, it’s moving Siri under Federighi’s group.

How Gurman got this scoop before Apple had announced the changes — even internally — is rather unbelievable. It’s not “Bloomberg” that got this scoop. It’s Mark Gurman. And trust me, Apple PR did not leak this to him deliberately. I’m sure they’re now accelerating an announcement, at least internally, framing it on their own terms. I can only guess that Gurman hinted at his sourcing in the passage above: Tim Cook must have announced these changes at the Top 100 retreat this week, and at least two of those attendees leaked the news to Gurman. Unprecedented.

Also:

Rockwell is currently the vice president in charge of the Vision Products Group, or VPG, the division that developed Apple’s headset. As part of the changes, he’ll be leaving that team and handing the reins to Paul Meade, an executive who has run hardware engineering for the Vision Pro under Rockwell.

I don’t find it surprising at all that Rockwell was given this task.

Giannandrea will remain at the company, even with Rockwell taking over Siri. An abrupt departure would signal publicly that the AI efforts have been tumultuous — something Apple is reluctant to acknowledge. Giannandrea’s other responsibilities include oversight of research, testing and technologies related to AI. The company also has a team reporting to Giannandrea investigating robotics.

This I find a little surprising. But maybe I shouldn’t. I don’t buy Gurman’s argument that dismissing Giannandrea would “signal publicly that the AI efforts have been tumultuous”. Apple already signaled that publicly when they announced that all of the ambitious features for Siri and Apple Intelligence that were promised for this year’s OS cycle would be postponed until next year’s OS cycle. That’s public tumult. But I mean, you can see for yourself that Apple’s AI efforts have been “tumultuous” by asking Siri on your iPhone, right now, what month it is.

What Apple needs to signal is that they don’t expect to deliver a significantly better Siri without making significant changes to the team behind Siri.

But maybe the answer is as simple as that Giannandrea is good at leading and managing teams doing advanced research that is abstracted from product. So move the products out of his division and into Federighi’s, and put someone who knows how to ship directly in charge of Siri. Leave Giannandrea in charge of a division focused on research and technology. Attention has moved on from “machine learning” to LLMs, but Apple’s machine learning game has gotten very good.

★ Thursday, 20 March 2025