Apple Tasks Vision Pro Creator With Fixing Siri

Apple having to delay the much-anticipated more conversational version of its Siri assistant has led CEO Tim Cook to appoint a new executive to get the job done. According to a new report from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman citing people familiar with the situation, Apple Vision Pro creator Mike Rockwell has been appointed as the company’s new AI head, replacing John Giannandrea.

“Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook has lost confidence in the ability of AI head John Giannandrea to execute on product development, so he’s moving over another top executive to help,” Gurman reported. In his new role, Rockwell will report directly to software chief Craig Federighi, while Giannandrea will remain at the company. While his future role is unclear, Gurman reported that Giannandrea, a former SVP of Engineering at Google, “long considered Rockwell a potential successor.”

The report says that Apple should announce the changes to employees this week and that Giannandrea leaving the company would lead to bad PR for the company. “Giannandrea’s other responsibilities include oversight of research, testing and technologies related to AI. The company also has a team reporting to Giannandrea investigating robotics,” Gurman explained.

Apple not being able to deliver the Siri updates it showed at WWDC 2024 and advertised in video ads for months is quite embarrassing for the company. It’s not as bad as the Apple Maps debacle that forced Tim Cook to issue a public apology (and lay off Scott Forstall, Apple’s senior vice president of iOS software), but it’s a sign of a company losing the plot on a technology it pioneered back in 2011.

Mike Rockwell, the new head of AI at Apple successfully oversaw the development of the Vision Pro, Apple’s first big product launch since the release of the Apple Watch and the AirPods. While the $3,499 Vision Pro was way too expensive to become a breakthrough hit, Gurman pointed out that Rockwell has been “one of the few Apple executives to take a major hardware device from ‘zero to one.'”

Tim Cook said in a recent interview that Apple only cared about being the best, not first. Still, it’s going to take a lot of work for Rockwell and his team to catch up with the competition.