Apple Brings in New Exec to 'Fix' Siri and Apple Intelligence

[MacRumors]

Apple is making an internal staffing change that it hopes will improve Siri and its artificial intelligence offerings, reports Bloomberg. Kim Vorrath, a 37-year Apple veteran, will join the AI team to work under AI chief John Giannandrea.

Vorrath is a program management VP, and has a reputation for meticulously managing software projects at Apple and ensuring employees meet deadlines. She has been described as Apple's "bug wrangler" and as a "powerful force" in the company. For the last few years, she has been working on Apple's AR/VR team developing the Vision Pro headset, but now she is being moved to AI.

The news comes just after a widely circulated story about Siri's failure to accurately provide basic knowledge about Super Bowl results. Siri has long been seen as inferior to other personal assistants, and in recent years, Siri has been unable to measure up to AI-based chatbots.

Apple is also addressing widespread criticism of its Apple Intelligence Notification summary feature, which has on several occasions mistakenly summarized news stories in a way that produced confusing false headlines. To fix the problem, Apple is temporarily removing Notification summaries for news and entertainment apps in iOS 18.3, an update expected next week.

Apple attempted to improve Siri by integrating OpenAI's ChatGPT into Apple Intelligence, but there are still serious problems with Siri. Additional Siri features are going to be coming in the near future as part of an iOS 18.4 update, and in iOS 19, Apple is rumored to be planning to introduce an LLM version of Siri that will be comparable to ChatGPT and Google's Gemini.

According to Bloomberg, Vorrath's move to the AI team is a signal that the company sees AI as more important than the Vision Pro. Vorrath is known for organizing engineering groups and redesigning workflows with new processes.

In a memo announcing the change, Giannandrea said that Apple plans to focus on improving the Siri infrastructure as well as Apple's in-house AI models.

Article Link: Apple Brings in New Exec to 'Fix' Siri and Apple Intelligence

 

[ignatius345]

I think they need to retire the name "Siri" at this point. It's been run into the ground. Start fresh with a new name and a new approach.

 

[iMac The Knife]

Good luck with that!!

 

[ericinboston]

Improve Autoreject first.

-Sent from my iPhone

 

[Johnstrass2]

Apple is making an internal staffing change that it hopes will improve Siri and its artificial intelligence offerings, reports Bloomberg. Kim Vorrath, a 37-year Apple veteran, will join the AI team to work under AI chief John Giannandrea.

Vorrath is a program management VP, and has a reputation for meticulously managing software projects at Apple and ensuring employees meet deadlines. She has been described as Apple's "bug wrangler" and as a "powerful force" in the company. For the last few years, she has been working on Apple's AR/VR team developing the Vision Pro headset, but now she is being moved to AI.

The news comes just after a widely circulated story about Siri's failure to accurately provide basic knowledge about Super Bowl results. Siri has long been seen as inferior to other personal assistants, and in recent years, Siri has been unable to measure up to AI-based chatbots.

Apple is also addressing widespread criticism of its Apple Intelligence Notification summary feature, which has on several occasions mistakenly summarized news stories in a way that produced confusing false headlines. To fix the problem, Apple is temporarily removing Notification summaries for news and entertainment apps in iOS 18.3, an update expected next week.

Apple attempted to improve Siri by integrating OpenAI's ChatGPT into Apple Intelligence, but there are still serious problems with Siri. Additional Siri features are going to be coming in the near future as part of an iOS 18.4 update, and in iOS 19, Apple is rumored to be planning to introduce an LLM version of Siri that will be comparable to ChatGPT and Google's Gemini.

According to Bloomberg, Vorrath's move to the AI team is a signal that the company sees AI as more important than the Vision Pro. Vorrath is known for organizing engineering groups and redesigning workflows with new processes.

In a memo announcing the change, Giannandrea said that Apple plans to focus on improving the Siri infrastructure as well as Apple's in-house AI models.

Article Link: Apple Brings in New Exec to 'Fix' Siri and Apple Intelligence

As a proud, happy owner of an apple Vision Pro this is bad news for me because she apparently was in charge of that product. Oh well, I hope they just make sure that the Apple Vision Pro continues to get incredible attention that it needs because we are all going to be using version 2.0 or 3.0 five years from now.

 

[roar08]

Depending on how much legacy Siri infrastructure exists, it might be better to start over and take advantage of all the developments since the beginning of Siri from the start.

 

[CapitalIdea]

Glad she's working on this. It's time to tighten that up and I'm glad it's no one from the ad division.

 

[Johnstrass2]

As a proud and happy owner of Apple Vision Pro it’s frustrating that the leader in charge of that product is being pulled away. You would think there would be somebody else who can get the Apple Intelligence and Siri program fixed other than her.


Even if you’re not using Apple Vision Pro now, if Apple continues to approve the product and its ecosystem, everybody will be using version 2.0 or 3.0 in about five years.

 

[scrapesleon]

changing executives won't fix the issue with Siri though

 

[sully54]

I just think its crazy that with all the bugs and issues Apple software has these days, they have someone like Vorrath, a "bug wrangler", working on a niche product like the Vision Pro.

 

[outlawarth]

First order of business for the new exec: get rid of the "Here is what I found on the web for you" response.

 

[danpass]

The substandard nature of Siri was always a mystery to me. "Why? Why? Why?"

 

[Kylo83]

I missed the days when Apple was the best at doing everything.

 

[JPack]

According to Bloomberg, Vorrath's move to the AI team is a signal that the company sees AI as more important than the Vision Pro. Vorrath is known for organizing engineering groups and redesigning workflows with new processes.

Was there ever any doubt?

The smart ones probably requested a transfer out of that team a year ago.

 

[krull1015]

👍🏻 glad they recognize the need in order to remain in the game. I think they realize how far behind they are in AI.

 

[wonderings]

Siri really is just a basic voice tool now. I use it for setting alarms and nothing else. They need the ChatGPT level of integration. If they could take what ChatGPT can do with voice and integrate it into MacOS/iOS they would have a winner. From what I have seen of Apple Intelligence it is really far behind and just not useful, or way too limited.

 

[Expos of 1969]

Now they admit things need fixing and Siri is bad. What a bunch of idiots.

 

[sw1tcher]

Vorrath is a program management VP, and has a reputation for meticulously managing software projects at Apple and ensuring employees meet deadlines.

Is Apple blaming the failings of Siri and Apple Intelligence on not being able to meet deadlines? Maybe they should try finding better software developers and not a new manager. Maybe Apple shouldn't have transfered the employees who worked on Apple's failed Car project to work on Apple Intelligence.

https://www.reuters.com/technology/apple-cancels-work-ev-moves-staff-ai-project-bloomberg-reports-2024-02-27/

Apple has canceled work on its electric car, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters on Tuesday, a decade after the iPhone maker kicked off the project.

[ . . . ]

Several employees working on the project will be shifted to the company's artificial intelligence (AI) division, according to Bloomberg News, which first reported the development.

 

[sw1tcher]

I think they need to retire the name "Siri" at this point. It's been run into the ground. Start fresh with a new name and a new approach.

Apple could rename it Iris

changing executives won't fix the issue with Siri though

Rearranging the deck chairs?

 

[I7guy]

Is Apple blaming the failings of Siri and Apple Intelligence on not being able to meet deadlines? Maybe they should try finding better software developers and not a new manager. Maybe Apple shouldn't have transfered the employees who worked on Apple's failed Car project to work on Apple Intelligence.

https://www.reuters.com/technology/apple-cancels-work-ev-moves-staff-ai-project-bloomberg-reports-2024-02-27/

Apple has canceled work on its electric car, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters on Tuesday, a decade after the iPhone maker kicked off the project.

[ . . . ]

Several employees working on the project will be shifted to the company's artificial intelligence (AI) division, according to Bloomberg News, which first reported the development.

Maybe the issue lies in the development work to rip open iOS from the EU.

 

[regu]

Apple should try to hire Ilya Sutskever and replace John G

 

[midwesthawkeye]

Siri has always been BASIC! BASIC AF!! Which is why I have not integrated her into my life. As long as "she" keeps doing that "Go look at your phone..." Bowshizzle, she is useless.

ANSWER MY QUESTIONS the way Alexa does, or you will not be used. It's that simple.

 

[netsped]

They should fire everyone and start over. Just keep the emoji guys.

 

[breather]

They are the biggest company in the world, yet they have a sucky bad voice assistant and bad ai (compared).
They have built lots of cool software, it can't be about incompetence, got to be about not prioritizing it for whatever reason.

 

[pianophile]

s Apple blaming the failings of Siri and Apple Intelligence on not being able to meet deadlines?

I agree. I wouldn't assume that failure to meet deadlines is the issue with Siri. It has improved so little in the last ten years that I would think that, painful and expensive as it would be, wiping the whole team and starting over might be in order.