Apple’s SVP Machine Learning and AI Strategy, John Giannandrea, to step down

Apple (AAPL) announced John Giannandrea, Apple’s senior vice president for Machine Learning and AI Strategy, is stepping down from his position and will serve as an advisor to the company before retiring in the spring of 2026. Apple also announced that renowned AI researcher Amar Subramanya has joined Apple as vice president of AI, reporting to Craig Federighi. Subramanya will be leading critical areas, including Apple Foundation Models, ML research, and AI Safety and Evaluation. The balance of Giannandrea’s organization will shift to Sabih Khan and Eddy Cue to align closer with similar organizations. Since joining Apple in 2018, Giannandrea has played a key role in the company’s AI and ML strategy, building a world-class team and leading them to develop and deploy critical AI technologies. This team is currently responsible for Apple Foundation Models, Search and Knowledge, ML Research, and AI Infrastructure. Subramanya brings a wealth of experience to Apple, having most recently served as corporate vice president of AI at Microsoft (MSFT), and previously spent 16 years at Google (GOOG, GOOGL), where he was head of engineering for Google’s Gemini Assistant prior to his departure. His deep expertise in both AI and ML research and in integrating that research into products and features will be important to Apple’s ongoing innovation and future Apple Intelligence features.