Apple has announced that senior vice president for Machine Learning and AI Strategy, John Giannandrea, is retiring and being replaced by Amar Subramanya, formerly a Microsoft AI executive.
After months of internal reorganizing and speculation around Giannandrea's fate at Apple, the news has finally broken about Apple's plans for its AI group. First, John Giannandrea will step down from his position and serve in an advisory role until the spring of 2026.
He will then retire fully from Apple, leaving Amar Subramanya in his place, though the role is changing slightly. Subramanya will be under Craig Federighi as vice president of AI.
The new title suggests a more specialized and focused role on the development of Apple Intelligence and other artificial intelligence integrations. Federighi, of course, is the senior vice president of Software Engineering and oversees much of the AI work already.
Apple says the balance of Giannandrea's organization will shift to Sabih Khan, COO, and Eddy Cue, SVP of Services, to align with similar organizations. Subramanya will be placed over Apple Foundation Models, ML research, and AI Safety and Evaluation.
"We are thankful for the role John played in building and advancing our AI work, helping Apple continue to innovate and enrich the lives of our users," said Apple CEO Tim Cook. "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."
"In addition to growing his leadership team and AI responsibilities with Amar's joining, Craig has been instrumental in driving our AI efforts, including overseeing our work to bring a more personalized Siri to users next year."
Subramanya is joining Apple from Microsoft, where he served as corporate vice president of AI. He had previously spent 16 years at Google, where he was head of engineering for Google Gemini.
