iPhone users are willing to take anyone as chief of AI at this point if it means a functioning Siri

The complete suite of Apple Intelligence features as well as the promised revamped Siri are still missing from the iPhone 17, let alone the iPhone 16 for which they were announced. Apple has let its chief of AI go but iPhone users don’t seem to mind because this might just finally lead to the completion of a new Siri.

Chief of AI leaves Apple

Giannandrea has served as the senior vice president of machine learning and AI strategy at Apple since 2018, an eight-year tenure. Once a hopeful hire from Google by CEO Tim Cook, Giannandrea’s attempts to push Apple Intelligence to new limits have failed, though not necessarily due to any personal faults of his own.

He has now left Apple and will be taking up advising positions across the startup world according to industry insider Mark Gurman. Giannandrea’s departure is a big loss in many ways, but Apple users are hopeful that this might mean progress on Siri at last.

Renewed hope for Siri

In a recent poll, we asked you whether you thought John Giannandrea’s departure from Apple would help the development of Siri or not. Almost 55 percent of you said that it couldn’t really hurt as Siri had been stuck in limbo for a very long time already.

Around 23 percent of voters thought that Giannandrea’s departure would definitely help Apple Intelligence progress because now someone more suited to the task can take over. For now, however, that isn’t really what’s happening. Apple is dividing AI development across existing executives.

Lastly, around 22 percent of you feel that this won’t help Siri and Apple Intelligence because new personnel will have to relearn everything from scratch. What about you? Will John Giannandrea’s exit from Apple finally help Siri become a competent digital assistant?

Any day now, I hope

A better, more capable Siri has been in the works for what feels like ages. Gurman argues that Giannandrea couldn’t push for the change he wanted to at Apple because he wasn’t part of the inner circle of executives at the top.

If Apple isn’t replacing Giannandrea with anyone — dividing production among other executives instead — then this might just finally lead to the new Siri coming out this year according to plan.

Cautious optimism

Unfortunately, I think we can all agree that we’ve heard of the new Siri’s impending launch multiple times before. If the chief of AI at Apple has just left, it is equally as likely, if not more so, that development will run into even more hurdles now.

I’m cautiously optimistic that the better Siri will come out this year with iOS 27. However, if it doesn’t, I would not be surprised in the slightest.

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