Apple has promoted John Giannandrea to its executive team as senior vice president of Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence Strategy.
Giannandrea, who joined Apple back in April of this year after eight years at Google, is responsible for Siri and the Core ML framework. Apple CEO Tim Cook said the company is “fortune to have John … driving our efforts in this critical area.”
Apple hired Giannandrea amid ongoing and increasing criticism of Siri, which was quickly falling behind rivals like Amazon Alexa and the Google Assistant. Siri still has some catching up to do, but it has become a lot better as 2018 has progressed.
After combining the teams behind Siri and Core ML, Giannandrea has become an Apple executive less than a year after making the move to Cupertino. He now features on the Leadership page of Apple’s website.
John Giannandrea becomes an Apple SVP
“John hit the ground running at Apple and we are thrilled to have him as part of our executive team,” said Cook in a statement published today.
“Machine learning and AI are important to Apple’s future as they are fundamentally changing the way people interact with technology, and already helping our customers live better lives. We’re fortunate to have John, a leader in the AI industry, driving our efforts in this critical area.”
Before joining Google, Giannandrea founded two companies — Tellme Networks and Metaweb Technologies. Metaweb was acquired by Google in 2010 for an undisclosed sum, at which point Giannandrea become a Google employee.
