Last month Apple experienced a major internal shake-up related to Siri, part of the fallout of its delayed Siri upgrades.An extensive new report at provides the best look yet into the drama happening behind the scenes, and where things stand with Siri now.Poor leadership behind Apple’s AI struggles Wayne Ma at has published a detail-packed report outlining how Apple “fumbled Siri’s AI makeover.” There are a lot of looks into the behind-the-scenes pulse of Apple employees throughout the last couple years of AI and Siri development.
For example, Ma notes that Apple’s struggles in AI seem partly tired to the company’s “militant stance on user privacy,” but just as significant is poor leadership.Ma writes: The “AIMLess” nickname says a lot about how many at Apple seem to have perceived its AI team.Demoing Siri upgrades that hadn’t been built Apple has gotten a lot of flack for demoing AI features last year at WWDC that seemingly didn’t even have working prototypes.
Ma’s report confirms that suspicion.Regarding Apple’s Siri demo where the assistant is asked about her mom’s flight landing and lunch plans, he writes: It’s pretty shocking that Siri’s new design was, per this report at least, the only new feature that was ready for testing within Apple last June.With that in mind, it’s almost surprising the company was able to even ship the new Siri features that it did in iOS 18.1 and 18.2.
Federighi’s ‘Intelligent Systems’ team One major theme throughout is that there seems to be much more optimism within Apple that Siri is in good hands now.Federighi and Rockwell seem to be viewed internally as leaders who get things done, and have strong track records of shipping.Not only that, Federighi’s software team has apparently built up its own sort of AI division—‘Intelligent Systems’—that’s seen as responsible for many of the Apple Intelligence features that have shipped.
While the AI/ML team continues to operate under Giannandrea, the piece hints that more clashes between Federighi and Giannandrea‘s teams could await.Also, Ma closes with a fascinating tidbit: Federighi has reportedly already changed one big AI policy for its work on Siri.Whereas Apple engineers previously had been directed to build features only using internal models, now using open-source third-party models has been given the green light.
There’s so much more included in the full report, it’s well worth a read if you subscribe to .Best iPhone accessories AirPods Pro 2 (now only $199, down from $249) MagSafe Car Mount for iPhone HomeKit smart plug 4-pack 10-year AirTag battery case 2-pack 100W USB-C power adapter for fast charging You’re reading 9to5Mac — experts who break news about Apple and its surrounding ecosystem, day after day.Be sure to check out our homepage for all the latest news, and follow 9to5Mac on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to stay in the loop.
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