Former Apple AI chief John Giannandrea joins CuspAI as advisor

John Giannandrea, Apple’s former artificial intelligence chief, is joining CuspAI in an advisory role as the British startup builds out its U.S. presence. (upstartsmedia.com) (9to5mac.com) Upstarts reported Giannandrea will work with CuspAI part-time, without a formal title, and help the company open a Bay Area office and recruit senior artificial intelligence talent. (upstartsmedia.com) (9to5mac.com) The move came within weeks of Giannandrea’s exit from Apple, where he had overseen work tied to Siri, Apple Intelligence and other artificial intelligence efforts. (9to5mac.com) (mactech.com) CuspAI is not a chatbot company. It uses artificial intelligence to design new materials by starting with desired properties, like heat resistance or conductivity, and generating candidate chemical compositions. (sifted.eu 1) (sifted.eu 2) The company says its system can compress materials discovery from years of lab work into a faster search process, aimed at customers in automotive, semiconductor, energy and climate industries. (cusp.ai) (sifted.eu) That pitch has attracted heavyweight backers and advisers. CuspAI raised more than $100 million in a Series A in September 2025, co-led by New Enterprise Associates and Temasek, with participation from Nvidia’s venture arm and Samsung Ventures. (sifted.eu) Its advisory bench already included Geoffrey Hinton and Yann LeCun, and CuspAI’s website also lists Martin van den Brink, Kristin Persson, Verity Harding and John Browne. (cusp.ai) (sifted.eu) Sifted reported on April 20 that CuspAI was in talks to raise at least $200 million more, in a deal expected to push its valuation above $1 billion. (sifted.eu) That fundraising backdrop helps explain the Giannandrea hire. CuspAI has been scaling after commercial deals with Hyundai, Meta and Kemira, and its 2025 funding plan included expanding operations in the United States and Asia. (sifted.eu) Giannandrea’s new role also shows where top platform artificial intelligence executives are landing next: not only model labs and consumer apps, but startups trying to turn artificial intelligence into industrial products. (upstartsmedia.com) (sifted.eu)