Is Apple Intelligence 2.0 on track?

Earlier this week, we learned about Apple’s decision to appoint Kim Vorrath, the vice president of the company’s Technology Development Group (TDG), to help build Apple Intelligence under the supervision of John Giannandrea, Apple’s senior vice president for machine learning and AI.

Vorrath, who also serves at a board member at the National Center for Women in IT and sits on the Industrial Advisory Board at Cal Poly, has been with Apple since 1987. She’s taken leadership roles in iOS and OS X — she was even in charge of macOS at one time. Part of the original iPhone development team, she also supervised OS development for iPad, Mac and Vision Pro.

When it comes to bug testing and software quality control, she can say which features are ready to go and which are not. Vorrath also coordinates releases, not just for the specific platform (such as iPhone), but between devices, which means a great deal when you consider how integrated the Apple ecosystem has become.

Getting the band together

That established talent will be critical, given that Apple Intelligence features are also designed to work across the Apple ecosystem.

Of course, making these complex high tech products work well together takes effective organization. Vorrath brings that. She seems to be a person who can organize engineering groups and design effective workflows to optimize what those teams can do. With all these achievements, it is no surprise Vorrath is seen as one of the women who contributed the most to making Apple great.

In her new role, she joins Giannandrea, who allegedly “needs additional help managing an AI group with growing prominence,” Bloomberg reported.

Put it all together and it’s clear that Vorrath is one of Apple’s top fixers and joins the AI team at a critical point. First, she’s probably going to help get a new contextually-aware Siri out the door, and second, she’ll be making decisions around what happens in the next major iterations of Apple Intelligence.

It’s the next steps for Apple’s AI that I think have been missed in much of the coverage of this internal Apple shuffle. 

Apple Intelligence 2.0

While people like to focus on Siri’s improvements and shortcomings, it must also be true that Apple hopes to maintain its traditional development cadence when it comes to Apple Intelligence.

That means delivering additional features and feature improvements every year, usually at WWDC. With the next WWDC looming fast, it might fall to Vorrath to select what additions are made, and to ensure they get developed on time.

Think logically and you can see why that matters. Apple announced Apple Intelligence at WWDC 2024, but it wasn’t ready to ship alongside the original release of operating system updates, and features were slowly introduced in the following months. 

Arguably, the schedule didn’t matter. What does matter is that Apple, then seen as falling behind in AI, used Apple intelligence to argue for its own continued corporate relevance. It bought itself some time.

Now it must follow up on that time. That means making improvements and additions to show continued momentum. It comes down to delivering solutions consumers will want to use, with a little Apple magic alongside new developer tools to extend that ecosystem.

It has to succeed in doing this to maintain credibility in AI.

Is Apple going to keep relevant?

Getting that right — particularly across all Apple’s platforms and in good time — is challenging, and is most likely why Vorrath has been brought in. There’s so much riding on getting the mix right. Apple needs to be able to say “Hey, We’re not done yet with Apple Intelligence,” and back that claim up with tools to keep users’ interest. Those new AI services need to work well, ship on time, and work so people won’t even know how much they needed them until they use them.

Getting that mix right is going to take skill, dedication, and discipline. In the coming months, all eyes will be on Apple as critics and competitors wait to find out whether Apple Intelligence was a one shot attempt at maintaining relevance, or the first steps of a great company about to find its AI feet.

Making sure it is the second, and not the first, should be the fundamental mission Vorrath has taken on in her new role. 

You can follow me on social media! Join me on BlueSky,  LinkedIn, Mastodon, and MeWe.