Accelerate the company’s road map and move quickly beyond merely making necessary improvements to Siri,
Apple CEO John Ternus told senior vice president of Software Engineering Craig Federighi, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reported.
Ternus pushed Federighi to pick up the pace on artificial intelligence development during a closed-door meeting. Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman detailed the internal friction in his Power On newsletter, citing anonymous sources.
Ternus is frustrated by a perceived reluctance to embrace AI with the same urgency as industry rivals. Federighi has been considered an AI skeptic, expressing concerns over privacy, security, and societal and employment impacts.
Mike Rockwell is considering leaving his role as vice president of Siri engineering or departing Apple entirely next year, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman. Rockwell led the development of the Vision Pro headset before taking over Apple’s digital assistant. He has reportedly expressed frustration over not receiving sufficient credit for fixing Apple’s digital assistant.
If Rockwell leaves, his Siri AI responsibilities could transfer to Amar Subramanya, a Google veteran hired last year, and Sebastien Marineau, a deputy working under Federighi. Siri’s recent updates fulfilled many of the promises made in 2024, but the assistant remains limited in handling lengthy agentic tasks in the background. Ternus described agentic AI capabilities as promising during a recent earnings call, as the company moves toward those deeper functions.
Apple is adjusting its software development process across major platforms starting with iOS 28. The company is altering development cycles to allocate more time for coding, exploration, and feature development while reducing the time spent rolling changes into the operating systems.
Employees have reacted positively to the adjustment, noting it provides more time for coming up with ideas and exploring them before needing to lock things in. Whether rushing the timeline will mean more bugs for consumer software releases will become clear next fall.