John Giannandrea joined Apple in April 2018, after an 8-year long stint in Google. Yesterday, Apple announced that he has been promoted as the senior vice president of Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence strategy and moved to the company’s executive team. He will directly report to Apple CEO Tim Cook.
“John hit the ground running at Apple and we are thrilled to have him as part of our executive team,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “Machine learning and AI are important to Apple’s future as they are fundamentally changing the way people interact with technology, and already helping our customers live better lives. We’re fortunate to have John, a leader in the AI industry, driving our efforts in this critical area”, he added.
John will be continuing to look after Apple’s virtual assistant Siri and the Core ML, and Create ML software that developers can use to incorporate artificial intelligence capabilities into their applications. At Google, John was overseeing Google search, along with machine intelligence and research.
Apple is facing serious competition from its rivals about incorporating artificial intelligence in their software. Siri, their virtual assistant has been criticized for its shortcomings in comparison to AI offerings from companies like Microsoft, Amazon, and Google. Perhaps this is why Apple has made this move to reorganize its AI teams into a single business unit under John’s leadership and also give him full charge of Siri.
The best sign: Giannandrea has not fled, suggesting perhaps Apple’s culture can be compatible with whatever changes will be required to be succcessful at shipping and supporting AI services. https://t.co/gmeZKCdax3
— Dan Frommer (@fromedome) December 21, 2018
John Giannandrea joined Apple in April of this year. Apple has already reorganized its entire AI/Siri/Machine learning team under him. Now he's on the exec team. https://t.co/YUTzZcAcSw
— Steve Kovach (@stevekovach) December 20, 2018
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