Apple announced that Amar Subramanya has joined the company as vice president of AI and would report to Craig Federighi. Meanwhile, John Giannandrea, senior vice president for Machine Learning and AI Strategy, is stepping down from his position and will serve as an advisor to the company before retiring in the spring of 2026. 

This move comes in after Apple has been lagging in the AI race, with Siri's major updates involving AI has been delayed to 2026, and competitors such as Samsung have been very quick to adapt to the technology in their devices. 

Who is Amar Subramanya?

Before joining the California-based company, Subramanya recently served as corporate vice president of AI at Microsoft, and previously spent 16 years at Google, where he was head of engineering for Google’s Gemini Assistant prior to his departure. 

"Subramanya brings a wealth of experience to Apple, having most his deep expertise in both AI and ML research and in integrating that research into products and features will be important to Apple’s ongoing innovation and future Apple Intelligence features," the statement read. 

Subramanya completed his engining degree in electrical, electronics, and communications engineering from Bangalore University in 2001. He joined IBM as a software engineer.

He interned with Microsoft months before working as a visiting researcher at the company after his PhD from the University of Washington in 2005. 

He later joined Google  as a staff research scientist, where he was promoted to principal engineer and then to VP of Engineering after eight years in 2019. He headed engineering for Google's Gemini Assistant. 

In July this year, he moved to Microsoft as Corporate Vice President (CVP) of AI. 

“AI has long been central to Apple’s strategy, and we are pleased to welcome Amar to Craig’s leadership team and to bring his extraordinary AI expertise to Apple. In addition to growing his leadership team and AI responsibilities with Amar’s joining, Craig has been instrumental in driving our AI efforts, including overseeing our work to bring a more personalised Siri to users next year," said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. 

"With Giannandrea’s contributions as a foundation, Federighi’s expanded oversight and Subramanya’s deep expertise guiding the next generation of AI technologies, Apple is poised to accelerate its work in delivering intelligent, trusted, and profoundly personal experiences," the statement read. 

Since joining Apple in 2018, Giannandrea has played a key role in the company’s AI and machine learning strategy, building a team and leading them to develop and deploy critical AI technologies. This team is currently responsible for Apple Foundation Models, Search and Knowledge, Machine Learning Research, and AI Infrastructure.

“We are thankful for the role John played in building and advancing our AI work, helping Apple continue to innovate and enrich the lives of our users,” Cook said.