Apple now also loses AI search chief – again to Meta

In the meantime, it has become a kind of staircase joke in Silicon Valley: Employees from Apple’s AI department regularly quit and go to the competition. After it was recently announced that an important Apple robotics researcher had migrated to Meta, it is now the search department of Apple Intelligence that is being hit. According to a Bloomberg News Report Ke Yang has signed off, who, ironically, only “weeks ago” became head of the AKI department, which stands for “Answers, Knowledge and Information”. Apple Intelligence’s AKI team is likely to create Apple’s AI search engine, should it ever come – but the direct goal is to finally make Siri fitter for web search queries.

Back to Meta Platforms

Yang, like many of his previous Apple colleagues, is going to Meta Platforms, the Facebook parent company, which runs a “superintelligence” laboratory and is wearing the spending pants massively. One of the AKI functions, “Answers”, is intended to help make Apple more competitive with ChatGPT’s web integration, Perplexity and Google’s AI search function. In the meantime, it looked as if Apple could lose its search deal with Google worth at least 20 billion US dollars – so they were looking for a replacement.

Yang had only recently become a direct subordinate of Apple’s AI boss John Giannandrea, who has since been partially dumped. But that apparently didn’t stop him from resisting Meta’s temptations. AKI works with various other teams, including the AI and ML Group (AIML) plus the Siri team, which reports directly to Apple’s software boss Craig Federighi.

“Many more” Apple Intelligence employees about to leave?

In the meantime, a good dozen Apple intelligence experts have already set off for other shores, including the chief scientist from Apple’s basic model department. According to the US media report, “many more” of Apple employees could leave in the coming months.

This means that the company is still not succeeding in stabilizing its AI department. The AKI team is now to be continued under Benoit Dupin, who is actually an expert in machine learning clouds. He again reports to John Giannandrea. Although he had been relieved of some of the responsibility for Siri, among other things, he continues valiantly in his position.