Amar Subramanya replaces John Giannandrea as Apple’s AI chief in major leadership shake-up

Apple announced on Monday that John Giannandrea, who has led the company’s AI efforts since 2018, is stepping down and will leave the organisation after serving as an adviser until spring, as reported by TechCrunch.

His role will now be taken over by Amar Subramanya, a senior Microsoft executive with a 16-year tenure at Google, where he most recently headed engineering for the Gemini Assistant. The appointment is being viewed as a strategic move, giving Apple leadership with deep insight into its fiercest competitors.

The change comes at a turbulent time for Apple’s AI strategy. Apple Intelligence, launched in October 2024 as the company’s major response to the generative AI wave, has faced sustained criticism, with reviews describing the rollout as underwhelming and, at times, deeply flawed. In its earliest months, the system’s notification summary tool generated several inaccurate and embarrassing headlines, including erroneous claims about high-profile criminal cases and sports events, prompting complaints from outlets such as the BBC.

Siri’s proposed reinvention also became a major setback. A Bloomberg investigation in May revealed extensive internal struggles, noting that Apple’s software chief Craig Federighi had discovered numerous promised features were non-functional during a pre-launch test on his own device. The overhaul was subsequently delayed indefinitely, leading to class-action lawsuits from iPhone 16 buyers who had been assured of an AI-enhanced assistant.

According to Bloomberg, Giannandrea had already been moved aside by that point. The publication reported that Tim Cook removed Siri and the company’s robotics group from his oversight in March, shifting those responsibilities to Vision Pro lead Mike Rockwell. The investigation described communication failures between AI and marketing teams, budget disputes, and a leadership crisis severe enough that staff had begun referring to the division as “AI/MLess”. The report also highlighted a steady migration of researchers to rivals including OpenAI, Google and Meta.

Apple is now reportedly depending on Google’s Gemini to power the forthcoming version of Siri, an unexpected development given the long-standing rivalry between the two companies across software, mobile ecosystems, search, maps, and AI.

Giannandrea originally joined Apple from Google, where he oversaw Machine Intelligence and Search. At Apple, he led AI strategy, machine-learning infrastructure and Siri development. Subramanya will now assume these responsibilities, reporting to Federighi with a clear mandate to accelerate Apple’s progress in artificial intelligence.