Ke Yang, a prominent executive at Apple who has been leading the company's initiatives in AI-driven web search, is reportedly transferring to Meta, as outlined in a recent Bloomberg report. This departure signals ongoing turbulence within Apple's AI unit, which is critical as the company gears up for a highly anticipated revamp of its virtual assistant, Siri, set for March.
Yang's exit follows a series of significant departures from Apple's AI and machine learning team. Earlier this year, Ruoming Pang, who previously headed Apple's AI models, left to join Meta. In total, around a dozen team members from Apple's AIML division have departed, with several of them now contributing to Meta's newly established Superintelligence Labs.
In his recent role at Apple, Yang was overseeing the Answers, Knowledge, and Information (AKI) team. This team's primary goal is to enhance Siri's capabilities by enabling it to gather information directly from the web. This improvement is crucial for Apple as it seeks to strengthen its position against competitors in the AI search arena, including OpenAI, Perplexity, and Google.
The enhanced version of Siri is expected to leverage personal data, which will allow it to perform more complex tasks, thereby improving user experience significantly. However, the recent departures have left the remaining team members concerned about the stability of the unit, with expectations that more AI team members may leave Apple in the near future.
As Apple prepares for the upcoming Siri overhaul, the company faces increasing pressure to retain its remaining talent within the AI division. The ongoing transitions within the team raise questions about the future of Apple's AI initiatives and its ability to compete in a rapidly evolving market. TechCrunch has reached out to both Apple and Meta for comments regarding these significant changes.
