John Gianandrea.
David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Apple’s head of AI is stepping down, the company announced Monday in the most visible change yet for the iPhone maker’s artificial intelligence group since launching the Apple Intelligence suite in 2024.
John Giannandrea, who has held the role since joining the company in 2018, will be replaced by Amar Subramanya, an AI researcher who most recently worked at Microsoft and previously worked at Google’s DeepMind AI division, according to his LinkedIn profile.
Gianandrea was a senior vice president and reported directly to Apple CEO Tim Cook. Apple said he will continue to serve as an advisor until he retires next spring.
The change comes as experts have said this year that Apple is lagging behind its peers in artificial intelligence, a technology field that has been reinvigorated since OpenAI launched ChatGPT in 2022.
Apple Intelligence was intended to put Apple on par with AI leaders like OpenAI and Google, but it hasn’t been well-received by users and critics. Earlier this year, one of its most important aspects, the much-revamped Siri assistant, was delayed until 2026, hinting at development challenges.
Subramanya will serve as Apple’s vice president of AI, reporting to head of software Craig Federighi.
Cook said in a statement that Federighi already plays a key role in Apple’s AI efforts.
“Amar’s addition expands our leadership team and AI responsibilities, and Craig has been instrumental in driving our AI efforts forward, including overseeing our efforts to bring personalized Siri to our users starting next year,” Cook said in a statement.
Subramanya will lead a team that focuses on Apple’s underlying models, research and AI safety. Apple said other teams that previously reported to Gianandrea will now report to COO Sabi Khan and head of services Eddie Cue.
Apple’s stock is up 16% in 2025, but investors say the iPhone maker is lagging behind peers that are investing billions of dollars in AI data centers, chips and frontier models, and many other big tech companies.
Apple announced in August that it was “significantly increasing” its investment in AI, which Cook described as a “deep” technology. Apple has signed a deal with leader OpenAI to integrate ChatGPT into some products, including Siri.
But Apple has a different strategy than companies like Microsoft, Google, and Meta. Infrastructure spending for technology has been significantly reduced. Apple also prefers to run AI on its own devices rather than communicating to more powerful computers in the cloud.
Earlier this year, Apple sold his startup io to OpenAI for $6.4 billion, with Jony Ive, the legendary hardware designer who helped co-founder Steve Jobs invent the iPhone, to help AI labs release their own hardware.
Analysts say Apple has been building loyalty motes among customers since the iPhone was launched in 2007, but AI-driven hardware is still on the way, with Ive and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman saying last month that the first prototypes have already been completed and could be rolled out within two years.
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