Apple has a new AI chief for its AI future
In a departure that took almost as long as Siri needs to find some obscure music requests, Apple has announced a new vice president of AI: Amar Subramanya, who will replace former AI chief John Giannandrea.
Subramanya will report directly to Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president for software engineering. Giannandrea will “transition to an advisory role” pending planned retirement next year. Certain roles previously occupied by Giannandrea will be shifted to Apple COO Sabih Khan and Senior Vice President for Services Eddy Cue. Subramanya will lead Apple Intelligence and Siri’s next chapters.
“We are thankful for the role John played in building and advancing our AI work, helping Apple continue to innovate and enrich the lives of our users,” Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, said in a statement. “AI has long been central to Apple’s strategy, and we are pleased to welcome Amar to Craig’s leadership team and to bring his extraordinary AI expertise to Apple. In addition to growing his leadership team and AI responsibilities with Amar’s joining, Craig has been instrumental in driving our AI efforts, including overseeing our work to bring a more personalized Siri to users next year.”
Who is Amar Subramanya?
The new Apple exec earned his bachelor’s degree at Bangalore University and completed a PhD in machine learning, large-scale systems and natural language technologies at the University of Washington. He also worked on speech recognition, natural language processing and multisensory fusion for robust speech systems while in college. At one point, he became a visiting researcher at Microsoft and received a Microsoft Research Graduate Fellowship.
Subramanaya took over leadership of Microsoft’s AI just 6 months ago, following 16 years at Google, including as vice president of engineering for Google Gemini. At Microsoft, he was involved with the development of foundation models for Copilot. But it’s likely his work on Gemini that most interests Apple as it seeks to build contextual intelligence in all its products, including Siri.
Subramanya appears to have been instrumental in the development of the Google AI chatbot, and was the lead voice to announce the addition of 1.5 Flash to Gemini last year. He was also deeply involved in pulling together Google’s initial response to ChatGPT, Bard. He was also part of the effort to put a gloss of privacy over Google’s AI features, telling journalists in 2023 that Google Bard users could “opt out” of sharing their data when using the service. This awareness of the importance of privacy hints that Apple will remain focused on private and personal AI — time will tell.
What will Subramanya do?
Subramanya will lead Apple’s teams in their work on foundation models, machine learning, and AI safety and evaluation. It is also important to note Subramanya’s extensive research background, which suggests how he will be able to help Apple weave AI more deeply across all its products and services. This extends to effective contribution in research and consumer facets of the role.
Apple describes these attributes as being “important to Apple’s ongoing innovation and future Apple Intelligence features.”
In the background
Unconfirmed speculation that Apple intends to use a licensed version of Google Gemini to support its own systems starting next year certainly lends a little additional excitement to word of the new hire. Subramanya is, after all, one of the small team of Google scientist researchers to have put Gemini together in the first place, which should assist Apple’s efforts to assimilate the Google tech, while also seeking to replace it with its own where possible.
The hire also indicates that Apple’s bleak days in a supposed AI desert are now behind it. Subramanya must now tell a story to his team to guide that journey out of the sand.
“This moment marks an exciting new chapter as Apple strengthens its commitment to shaping the future of AI for users everywhere,” said Apple.
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