Amar Subramanya spent mere months at Microsoft before replacing John Giannandrea

Apple's failure to deliver advanced AI capabilities has triggered a changing of the guard. AI chief John Giannandrea is stepping down in favor of a new leader to steady the Siri ship.

Giannandrea, who joined Apple in 2018 from a role as Google's SVP of search and AI, is being replaced by another former Google AI boffin, lately Microsoft's corporate vice president of AI, Amar Subramanya, Cupertino said in a press release Monday. Giannandrea is leaving his role effective immediately, but will stay on at Apple as an advisor until he retires next spring. 

Subramanya is coming on board as Apple's VP of AI and will report directly to Apple's SVP of software engineering, Craig Federighi, where he'll be taking the lead on Apple foundation models, machine learning research, and AI safety and evaluation. Those are all responsibilities that Giannandrea also had, with the ...