The Apple AI Leadership Shift has become a major topic in the tech world after Apple announced that John Giannandrea, its long-time AI chief, is leaving the company. Apple said on Monday that he is stepping down from his role and will stay on only as an advisor until spring. His exit marks a turning point for Apple, which has faced ongoing struggles with its AI plans over the past two years. Apple also named his replacement. Amar Subramanya, a respected executive with deep experience at Google and Microsoft, will take over the company’s top AI role. He spent many years at Google and most recently worked on engineering for the Gemini Assistant. His background gives Apple a leader who knows the strengths and weaknesses of its biggest rivals. Industry experts see the move as a significant shake-up. Many believe it became unavoidable after Apple’s AI rollout lost steam. Apple Intelligence, which launched in October 2024, was meant to show that Apple could compete with other major players in the AI space. Instead, early reviews said the system was slow, confusing, and often inaccurate. Some reactions even showed concern about how the system handled basic facts. One of the most talked-about problems came from the notification summary feature. This feature was supposed to make alerts easy to read. Instead, it created false news items. Late in 2024 and early in 2025, it pushed out several wrong summaries that caused public confusion. The BBC complained twice after Apple Intelligence wrongly claimed that a murder suspect had harmed himself and later said a darts player had won a match that had not begun. These mistakes raised questions about how Apple tested its AI tools before releasing them. Another major issue was the planned upgrade to Siri. Apple had promised a stronger voice assistant built on modern AI methods. A report later showed that this upgrade was not close to ready. Apple’s software leader, Craig Federighi, tested the new system on his own phone just weeks before the expected launch. Many key features did not work. Apple then delayed the launch without a new date. This delay even led to lawsuits filed by buyers of the iPhone 16, who believed they had been promised new AI abilities at release. Reports also said internal problems played a role. According to a detailed investigation, Giannandrea had been losing control of major parts of Apple’s AI program for months. Apple removed Siri from his oversight and gave it to Mike Rockwell, the leader behind the Vision Pro headset. Apple also moved a robotics team away from him. These changes pointed to deep disagreements within the company. The same investigation described weak communication between teams, unclear leadership decisions, and a lack of direction. Some staff even used the nickname “AI/MLess,” a sign of low trust in the group. Many staff members left Apple for jobs at OpenAI, Google, and Meta, adding to the pressure on the remaining teams. With the company behind in AI, Apple has reportedly turned to outside help. It is now preparing to use Google’s Gemini model to power the next version of Siri. This marks a surprising turn for two companies that have spent more than a decade competing in phones, apps, maps, cloud systems, and now AI tools. Giannandrea’s history added to the public interest in this decision. He joined Apple in 2018 after running Search and Machine Intelligence at Google. At Apple, he helped shape its machine learning systems and coordinated work on Siri and AI strategy. His departure shows that Apple is ready to reset its approach. Subramanya will now lead these efforts and report directly to Federighi. He will face the challenge of helping Apple regain ground in an AI race that has moved fast. Other companies have built large data centers and trained huge AI models. Apple, on the other hand, has focused on doing most AI tasks on the device itself. This approach protects user privacy but limits the size of the models the company can deploy. When Apple must run tasks in the cloud, it uses a system called Private Cloud Compute, which promises to delete data right away. These decisions have benefits but also make it harder for Apple to match the power of bigger models used by rivals. Now, with new leadership and rising competition, Apple must show whether its private, on-device strategy can still succeed or if the company must change course to keep pace in the global AI market.