Apple Losing AI Researchers to Rivals, but Siri Chatbot Plans Remain on Track: Report

Apple's artificial intelligence (AI) projects have so far sparked a tepid response from users and investors. Despite announcing AI as a key venture during its latest earnings call, CEO Tim Cook did not specify any monetisation plans, leading to a weak stock market reaction. Now, a new report reveals that the Cupertino-based tech giant might have lost multiple AI researchers to rival companies, adding to its list of problems. However, despite the setbacks, the company is reportedly continuing with its plans to release a chatbot-style Siri experience later this year.

Multiple Employees Leave Apple

According to a Bloomberg report, Apple has lost four AI researchers in recent weeks. The list reportedly includes Yinfei Yang, Haoxuan You, Bailin Wang, and Zirui Wang. This list of exits is in addition to the departure of Stuart Bowers, a Senior Director, who left last month to join a rival.

Two of the former Apple researchers, You and Bailin Wang, have reportedly joined Meta, with the former working with the Superintelligence Labs while the latter working with the Recommendations team. Zirui Wang and Bowers have both joined Google DeepMind, as per the report. Yang, on the other hand, is said to be working on his company, which is currently in stealth. Interestingly, the four researchers were reportedly working in Apple's Foundation Models (AFM) team, whereas Bowers was working on Siri.

The departures have reportedly resulted in prompt reorganisation in the Cupertino tech giant. Most notably, the AFM team is currently said to be headed by AI researcher Zhifeng Chen after the former chief, Ruoming Pang, left for Meta last year.

Despite the talent drain, the report claims that Apple remains on track for its Siri projects. The first project, which is sometimes referred to as the Advanced Siri, is said to let the voice assistant access the user's data scattered across the device and answer queries based on it. The second is a more ambitious project that aims to turn Siri into a chatbot-style experience.

It is said to be dubbed Campos internally, and is slated to arrive later this year, likely alongside iOS 27 and adjacent updates for other devices. This AI chatbot is said to come equipped with all the capabilities of a typical chatbot, such as ChatGPT or Gemini. Both versions are said to be powered by Google's custom AI models.