Siri Reshuffle Witnesses Exit of Two Key Executives

California: As Apple, a multinational technology company that designs, develops and sells consumer electronics, computer software and online services, reshuffles the Siri team witnesses the exit of its two key executives.

According to a report of The Information, Apple confirmed the exit of Vipul Ved Prakash, Head of Search, Apple and Tom Gruber, Head of Siri’s Advanced Development Group.

As per the information available, Gruber, who was one of the original Siri co-founders will move ahead to pursue personal interests in photography and ocean conservation while plans of Prakash are still unknown.

Prakash became part of Apple’s team in 2013 after the acquisition of search engine and analytics firm Topsy was done by Apple. He served as a CEO with Topsy.

According to 9to5mac.com, the Apple-Topsy deal valued around $224 million and Apple shut down Topsy after two years of its acquisition.

John Giannandrea to be Chief of Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence

John Giannandrea, an ex-Google executive, will be given charge of Machine Learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) Strategy. This was announced by the company last week.

Giannandrea will be looking after further development of Core ML and Siri technologies along with Apple’s ML division, Siri and the Core ML team. He joined the company in April and reports to CEO Tim Cook.

Notably, the media studies reveal that Google and Amazon are still ahead of Apple in AI areas like Natural Language Processing (NLP) and computer vision needed to power voice assistant features in Siri.

In order to compete with Google Home and Alexa-based smart home systems, Apple made a significant investment in Siri and HomeKit.

In 2017, Apple added an AI chip called Neural Engine to the A11 Bionic for the iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus and iPhone X to work with the Image Signal Processor (ISP).