Apple plans to relocate the robotics team from John Giannandrea’s AI organization to the hardware division later this month, according to people with knowledge of the move. That will place it under Senior Vice President John Ternus, who oversees hardware engineering, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the change isn’t public.
Giannandrea, a former Google executive who serves as senior vice president of machine learning and artificial intelligence strategy, continues to run most of Apple’s AI efforts. And the change will give his group more time to focus on underlying artificial intelligence technology, the people said.
A representative for Cupertino, California-based Apple declined to comment.
Ternus already has jurisdiction over a hardware engineering team run by executives Matt Costello and Brian Lynch that has been working on robotics and smart home technologies. The latest shake-up also suggests that Apple is ramping up work on the effort and wants both groups more closely aligned under a single boss.
The shifts do free up Giannandrea’s group to focus on development of underlying models that will power future Apple products — including upgrades to Apple Intelligence and Siri.
Giannandrea hasn’t given his team any indication that he is planning to leave soon, but the continued shift of responsibilities has raised the prospect that the company may be preparing for a world without the executive at the helm of its AI efforts. Eight years after combining Apple’s AI teams into a single group with the hire of Giannandrea, a breakup of the AI and ML team is looking more likely, the people said.
