Apple AI Leadership Shakeup Amid Failed Rollouts and Internal Turmoil

In a major restructuring move, Apple announced on December 2, 2025, that John Giannandrea, its artificial intelligence chief since 2018, is stepping down following a series of embarrassing failures in the company's AI initiatives.

He will be replaced by Amar Subramanya, a seasoned executive with 16 years of experience at Google, where he led engineering for the Gemini Assistant, and later served as Microsoft's corporate vice president of AI.

The leadership change comes after Apple's AI platform, Apple Intelligence, launched in October 2024, faced significant technical and public relations challenges. Key issues included false news generation, complaints from broadcasters like the BBC, and the collapse of a promised Siri overhaul.

Internally, the situation had been deteriorating for months. In March 2025, CEO Tim Cook removed Siri development from Giannandrea's oversight, assigning it to Mike Rockwell, creator of the Vision Pro. A secretive robotics division was also taken out of his control.

The delayed Siri relaunch, initially set for April 2025, was indefinitely postponed after internal testing revealed that many features did not work. This delay has triggered class-action lawsuits from iPhone 16 buyers who were promised AI-powered capabilities.

Apple's AI strategy has been hampered by organizational dysfunction, including weak communication between teams, budget misalignments, and low employee morale, leading to an exodus of researchers to competitors like OpenAI, Google, and Meta.

In response, Apple is recalibrating its approach. The company has struck a deal with OpenAI to integrate ChatGPT into some products and is reportedly leaning on Google's Gemini to power the next version of Siri, signaling a shift from its traditionally insular model.

Despite a 16% increase in Apple shares in 2025, the company lags behind other tech giants in AI investment. CEO Tim Cook has acknowledged AI as a "profound" technology and announced increased spending, but Apple's privacy-first, on-device processing philosophy may have left it behind in the AI arms race.

The new AI chief, Subramanya, will report directly to Craig Federighi, Apple's software chief, and is tasked with leading foundation models, machine-learning research, and AI safety efforts to steer the company back on track.