Apple hire's former Google employee John Giannandrea to head Core ML and Siri teams

Apple is creating a new team under John Giannandrea which will bring both the Core ML and Siri teams together. Giannandrea, who just joined the Apple leadership, is the chief of machine learning and AI strategy and will oversee the strategy for Artificial Intelligence and machine learning across the company and development of Core ML and Siri technologies. A former Google employee, Giannandrea spent eight years there leading Machine Intelligence, Research, and Search teams. Before this, he co-founded two technology companies, Tellme Networks and Metaweb Technologies. [caption id=“attachment_4713471” align=“alignnone” width=“1280”] John Giannandrea, Chief of Machine Learning and AI Strategy, Apple. Image: TechCrunch[/caption] According to TechCrunch, it makes sense to have one experienced person to overlook the teams, because AI is now central across most of Apple’s initiatives. The internal structures of the Core ML and Siri teams will continue to be the same, but both will report to Giannandrea. In the past, Giannandrea was a senior engineer at General Magic, a company that was founded by Apple team members in 1989. The company may have eventually failed, but they generated many technology breakthroughs like tiny touchscreens and software modems. Considering that Apple has slacked in terms of virtual assistants and AI technology behind Google and others until now, it seems like this leadership role was a long time coming. Bringing on board one of the top AI executives in the tech space is a clear indication that Apple wants to speed their machine learning plants in the near future. Apple is in the process of building one of the biggest edge computing networks ever for AI, as it has more than a billion devices in use globally.