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Senior Siri researcher leaves Apple
A senior researcher’s exit and a near-mutiny among Apple Intelligence engineers expose Apple’s struggle to stay competitive in the AI arms race.
Apple is facing mounting internal fractures over its AI strategy, losing one of its top researchers while scrambling to keep key teams on board. It increasingly looks like a crisis of confidence in Cupertino.
Tom Gunter, one of Apple’s most senior large language model researchers, has left the company after eight years. Colleagues say his deep expertise is tough to replace, especially as rivals like Meta and OpenAI throw around multimillion-dollar pay packages to poach talent.
The news comes in a Monday report from Bloomberg that also alleges Apple plans to integrate rival AI models more deeply into Siri.
Apple narrowly averts MLX team exodus
Apple is no longer the most desirable shop in town for machine learning. If it can’t match competitors’ salaries, Apple risks losing valuable talent.
Additionally, the company must provide them with compelling and meaningful projects. Otherwise, it risks its machine learning team becoming hollowed out.
Apple nearly lost the entire team behind MLX, its open-source machine learning framework optimized for Apple Silicon. Those engineers reportedly threatened to quit, forcing the company to scramble with counteroffers to keep them.
The fact that it came to that brink suggests morale is shaky and confidence in leadership is eroding.
MLX isn’t a throwaway side project, it’s essential for Apple’s strategy to get cutting-edge AI running efficiently on its chips. Losing that team would have been a disaster.
Apple averted catastrophe this time. But paying people to stay isn’t the same as keeping them motivated and aligned with the company’s mission.
Apple’s AI strategy shows signs of drift
These staffing dramas are a symptom of a deeper strategic confusion. Apple is debating whether to keep investing in its own foundation models or outsource core AI features like Siri to Anthropic or OpenAI.
Internally, executives reportedly see their own models as inferior. That kind of language does not inspire confidence in the teams building them.
Siri has lagged competitors for years. Outsourcing to Anthropic or OpenAI might be the only way to catch up quickly, even if it undermines Apple’s reputation for vertical integration.
