Siri leadership shakeup
John Giannandrea retired the same day reports surfaced about Siri’s future, and Apple has moved oversight of AI to Craig Federighi with Mike Rockwell identified as Siri lead. (x.com) Apple is also reported to be paying Google roughly $1 billion a year to run Gemini models that power parts of its backend AI stack. (x.com)
Apple has finished pulling Siri out of John Giannandrea’s orbit, ending an eight-year run that was supposed to remake its artificial intelligence effort. (apple.com) Apple said on December 1, 2025 that Giannandrea would step down as senior vice president for machine learning and artificial intelligence strategy, stay on as an adviser, and retire in spring 2026. Reports this week said his final stock vesting date was April 15, 2026, making this his last week at the company. (apple.com) (macrumors.com) The operational change came earlier. Bloomberg reported on March 20, 2025 that Apple put Vision Pro creator Mike Rockwell in charge of Siri and had him report to software chief Craig Federighi, removing Siri from Giannandrea’s command. (bloomberg.com) That move followed a public miss on timing. After unveiling Apple Intelligence on June 10, 2024, Apple said on March 7, 2025 that the “more personalized Siri” features it had previewed would take longer and would roll out in the coming year. (apple.com) (daringfireball.net) Apple’s original pitch was that its software would combine generative models with a user’s personal context on iPhone, iPad, and Mac. It also built in a handoff to OpenAI’s ChatGPT when Siri needed outside help, with Apple saying users would be asked before questions were sent. (apple.com) (openai.com) Now the reported strategy is broader than a single partner. Bloomberg has reported that Apple has explored relying on Google’s Gemini to power the rebuilt Siri, and CNBC reported in February 2026 that Apple had announced in January it chose Gemini technology for the overhaul. (finance.yahoo.com) (cnbc.com) The reported price is about $1 billion a year. Bloomberg said Apple was nearing a deal at that level for a custom Gemini model, a sign that the company was willing to buy cloud intelligence instead of waiting for its own models to catch up. (finance.yahoo.com) Giannandrea was hired from Google in 2018 to lead Apple’s machine learning and artificial intelligence work. Apple said in its retirement announcement that his team was responsible for foundation models, search and knowledge, machine learning research, and artificial intelligence infrastructure. (apple.com 1) (apple.com 2) What Apple has not done publicly is explain the Gemini arrangement in detail or put a launch date on the delayed Siri features beyond saying they would arrive later than planned. The result is that Federighi and Rockwell now own the most visible part of Apple’s artificial intelligence reset while Giannandrea exits as the company tries to ship the assistant it previewed in 2024. (daringfireball.net) (bloomberg.com)
