Who is Amar Subramanya, Apple’s new VP of AI poached from Microsoft?

Amar Subramanya will leave his job as corporate vice-president at Microsoft just six months after leaving tech competitor Google – a company he worked at for 16 years – where he worked on the Gemini chatbot.
Widely seen as a leader in the AI industry, Subramanya’s appointment could suggest that Apple is eager to ramp up its AI endeavours, having previously been accused of falling behind in the global AI race.
John Giannandrea, current senior vice-president for machine learning and AI strategy at Apple, will step down and serve as adviser to the technology company until retiring in the spring, the company said this week.
Microsoft poached Subramanya from Google earlier in the year as the company sought to build its own superintelligence team led by DeepMind co-founder Mustafa Suleyman.
“We are thankful for the role John played in building and advancing our AI work, helping Apple continue to innovate and enrich the lives of our users,” said Tim Cook, CEO at Apple.
“AI has long been central to Apple’s strategy, and we are pleased to welcome Amar to Craig’s leadership team and to bring his extraordinary AI expertise to Apple.”
Since joining Apple in 2018, Giannandrea played a critical role in the company’s AI and machine learning strategy. He was instrumental in building a strong team and leading them to develop and deploy AI technologies including Apple Foundation Models, Search and Knowledge, Machine Learning Research and AI Infrastructure.
However, the iPhone company has struggled to make as much progress in AI as its competitors, with analysts in the past arguing that they perhaps haven’t put as much effort into the technology.
Subramanya’s role could now be to help Apple catch up and position the company more as an AI competitor on the global stage.
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