Apple loses yet another AI exec as head of ChatGPT-like search effort departs for Meta

Apple CEO Tim Cook
Ke Yang, the Apple executive spearheading an initiative to create AI-powered web search capabilities, is departing to join Meta Platforms.
Yang’s group, known as Answers, Knowledge and Information (AKI), is working on enhancements to make the Siri voice assistant more akin to ChatGPT, including features that enable it to retrieve real-time information from the internet.
Yang’s departure marks the most recent in a series of prominent exits from Apple’s AI division, where approximately a dozen members of the Apple Foundation Models team have left this year.
Mark Gurman for Bloomberg News:
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Just weeks ago, [Yang] was appointed head of a team called Answers, Knowledge and Information, or AKI. The group is developing features to make the Siri voice assistant more ChatGPT-like by adding the ability to pull information from the web.
That team is central to a major Siri revamp planned for March, part of Apple’s broader effort to revive its struggling AI operations. The new version of Siri will also include features delayed from earlier this year, such as the ability to tap into personal data to handle more complex requests.
The Answers feature, in particular, was designed to help Apple better compete with OpenAI, Perplexity and Alphabet Inc.’s Google Gemini in the AI-powered search market — a space rapidly gaining traction among both smartphone and computer users.
Yang recently became a direct report to John Giannandrea, Apple’s senior vice president of AI and machine learning. He had led the search-focused elements of the AKI group before taking over the entire division — a move that followed the departure of its previous head, Robby Walker.
The new Siri is being developed as a joint effort between Apple’s artificial intelligence and machine learning group, known as AIML, and the Siri engineering team now overseen by Craig Federighi’s software organization.
Within AIML, Yang was regarded as the most prominent executive working on the new Siri initiative. His exit ranks among the biggest departures from Apple’s AI organization this year — a period marked by a steady exodus of top researchers building the company’s AI core models.

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MacDailyNews Take: The problem was, is, and will continue to be Giannandrea. Nobody wants to work for a dead man walking who, when he’s not doing nothing, is routinely failing and having his responsibilities constantly stripped away because he can’t handle the job.
Whatever Giannandrea’s golden parachute is, Apple, just take the hit and cut him loose already.
Apple pays and has been paying John Giannandrea, Senior Vice President of Machine Learning and AI Strategy, millions upon millions of dollars for years. WTF of any import does he really do? WTF of any import has he really delivered? Have you used Siri lately? Yup, it’s still a steaming pile of dogshit.
Where’s Apple’s generative AI, John? “Too hard; too late; look for partners; gimme my paycheck and stock options.”
AAPL shareholders need to start asking real questions of these executives, especially those who are supposedly in charge of Apple’s “AI Strategy,” when the company clearly has none. How about some accountability for once? – MacDailyNews, March 18, 2024

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