Apple’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) artificial intelligence division has seen another major departure, with Ke Yang, the executive leading its AI-driven web search initiative, leaving to join Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META), Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter.
Yang had recently been appointed head of Apple’s Answers, Knowledge and Information (AKI) team, which is developing technology to make Siri more ChatGPT-like by enabling it to pull information from the web. The project is part of a major Siri overhaul planned for March, aimed at strengthening Apple’s position in AI and web search.
Yang’s exit follows a series of departures from Apple’s AI organization. Over the past few months, several top researchers, including Ruoming Pang, founder of Apple’s Foundation Models team, have joined Meta’s new Superintelligence Labs unit. Other recent exits include Sam Wiseman, Chong Wang, and Frank Chu, all of whom worked on advanced AI or search-related projects.
Yang, who had reported directly to Apple’s senior vice president of AI and machine learning, John Giannandrea, was considered one of the most influential figures behind the new Siri initiative. His departure highlights the instability within Apple’s AI organization, which has struggled to retain top talent while competitors like OpenAI, Google, and Meta rapidly advance their generative AI capabilities.
Following Yang’s move, leadership of the AKI team will shift to Benoit Dupin, a Giannandrea deputy overseeing Apple’s machine learning-related cloud infrastructure.