Apple’s foundation models (AFM) team has experienced a loss of employees recently, amid considerations of a significant change in its artificial intelligence strategy. The situation involves departures of key personnel to Meta, along with Apple’s evaluation of integrating third-party large language models (LLMs) into its upcoming Siri updates.
Meta has hired away four Apple AI staff members over the past month. This series of departures began with Meta’s poaching of Apple’s head of foundation models. Adding to this initial loss, two significant colleagues of the former head of foundation models followed, also joining Meta. The trend continued with a fourth member of the foundation models team reportedly transitioning to Meta’s new ‘Superintelligence’ team.
Bowen Zhang, a notable multimodal AI researcher at Apple, departed the company on Friday. Mark Gurman of Bloomberg reported this development, noting that Zhang is slated to join Meta’s newly established superintelligence team. Gurman stated, “Bowen Zhang, a key multimodal AI researcher at Apple, left the company on Friday and is set to join Meta’s recently formed superintelligence team, according to people familiar with the matter. Zhang was part of the Apple foundation models group, or AFM, which built the core technology behind the company’s AI platform.” Zhang’s expertise was centered within Apple’s AFM group, which plays a crucial role in developing the fundamental technology supporting Apple’s AI platform.
Apple’s AI head jumps ship to Meta
While Apple has been making adjustments to compensate its AFM staff, these efforts have not been entirely successful. Gurman noted Apple has “been marginally increasing the pay of its AFM staffers,” however, the updated compensation “pale in comparison with those of rivals.” This difference in pay scales may be contributing to the difficulty in retaining talent within the AFM team.
Apple is currently exploring the possibility of utilizing third-party LLMs to enhance its forthcoming Siri updates and other potential Apple Intelligence features. The company has begun considering alternatives to AFM models for the next iteration of its Siri voice assistant. This exploration includes the potential integration of OpenAI’s ChatGPT or Anthropic PBC’s Claude models into Siri’s functionality. Simultaneously, Apple is developing a competing version of Siri that relies on its own new AFM models. The company has not yet made a final decision regarding which approach to implement. This uncertainty surrounding the future direction of Siri’s development has reportedly created unease within the AFM team.
