Apple's top AI executive quits amid growing talent exodus
What's the story
Robby Walker, one of Apple's most senior artificial intelligence (AI) executives, is leaving the company next month. Walker was previously in charge of Siri until early this year when his responsibilities were shifted to software chief Craig Federighi. The change came after promised improvements to the feature were publicly delayed, marking a major setback for the tech giant.
Project leadership
Walker's role in Apple's AI strategy
After stepping down from his role with Siri, Walker took on a key position in developing an AI-powered web search system to take on Perplexity and ChatGPT. The new project is slated for launch next year. As the senior director of Apple's Answers, Information and Knowledge team, Walker has been instrumental in shaping the company's AI strategy despite a significant reduction in his duties and staff over the past few months.
Executive exits
String of departures from Apple's AI division
Walker's impending exit adds to a string of departures from Apple's AI division. Ruoming Pang, who led the company's AI models team, recently left for Meta, taking many of his engineers and researchers with him. Last month, Frank Chu, another senior executive working on search services at Apple, also left for the social networking giant.
Feature setbacks
Walker's candid remarks about Siri's delayed features
In an internal meeting in March, Walker responded to criticism over Siri's delayed features by saying they were embarrassing. He said, "We swam hundreds of miles — we set a Guinness Book for World Records for swimming distance — but we still didn't swim to Hawaii." "And we were being jumped on, not for the amazing swimming that we did, but the fact that we didn't get to the destination."