This year, Apple’s stock has underperformed the overall market.
Apple is bringing in an outsider to liven things up since it is thought to be lagging behind in artificial intelligence.
On Monday afternoon, the business declared that “renowned AI researcher” Amar Subramanya had joined the team and would be the vice president of AI. According to his LinkedIn profile, he worked for Google for 16 years before spending only a few months at Microsoft (MSFT).
“His deep expertise in both AI and [machine-learning] research and in integrating that research into products and features will be important to Apple’s ongoing innovation and future Apple Intelligence features,” the company stated in a release.
Before departing Alphabet (GOOG), Subramanya was the engineering leader at Google Gemini, according to the company (GOOGL).
John Giannandrea, who is leaving his position and taking on an advising role until the spring, when he will retire, is somewhat replaced by Subramanya. Apple stated that while some of Giannandrea’s previous areas of control will now be under the purview of other Apple executives, Subramanya will be in charge of Apple’s foundation models, machine-learning research, and AI safety projects.
Compared to its competitors, Apple has approached artificial intelligence differently by utilizing partnerships and maintaining capital expenditure control. The company’s shares have underperformed the S&P 500 SPX so far this year, and it has had difficulty implementing AI features as promised.
Last week, Seaport Research analyst Jay Goldberg told MarketWatch, “Apple doesn’t know what its AI strategy is, and that’s the real root of the problem.”
It’s unclear if Subramanya will focus on collaborations, especially with his previous employers, or usher in a period of increased spending at Apple.
CFO Kevan Parekh talked on Apple’s hybrid data-center strategy during the company’s most recent earnings call. “I don’t see us moving away from this hybrid model where we leverage both first-party capacity as well as leverage third-party capacity,” he stated.
Parekh added that the business has recently raised capital expenditures to assist the development of Private Cloud Compute, which is intended to guarantee the secure processing of users’ AI data.
