Robby Walker, one of Apple’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) senior artificial intelligence executives, plans to leave the company next month, according to a report by Bloomberg.
Walker leads Apple’s Answers, Knowledge and Information teams, which is within Apple’s Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning organization. He has worked at Apple since 2013, when the Cupertino-based company acquired his startup Cue, which created a personal search and proactive assistance tool. His first startup, Zenter, was acquired by Google (GOOG)(GOOGL) in 2007.
Walker was most recently working on Apple’s new AI-powered web search system, according to the report, which cited people familiar with the situation.
If true, his departure would drive up the number of high-profile AI researchers who have left Apple over the last few months. Researcher Jian Zhang, who had worked at Apple for a decade, including most recently as the head of robotics research, left earlier this month to take a similar position at Meta Platforms (META).
Other Apple employees leaving over the past month include John Peebles, Nan Du and Zhao Meng. Ruoming Pang, who created Apple’s AI models team, has also departed. AI engineers Tom Gunter, Mark Lee, Bowen Zhang and Yun Zhu all quit for Meta as well. Also, Frank Chu, who led Apple AI teams for cloud infrastructure, training, and search, has joined Meta’s Superintelligence Labs to work on AI infrastructure.