Kristina Roberts
When a key person leaves a company during an important project, it can feel like the heart of the team is missing. That’s what has happened at Apple, where a senior AI executive, Ke Yang, has reportedly left to join Meta. Yang was not just any employee — he was the Senior Director of Machine Learning and was leading a special team responsible for giving Siri a major AI upgrade. His team was building new features that could make Siri more like ChatGPT, helping it understand and respond to questions in a more human-like and natural way.
Ke Yang’s team, known as the Answers, Knowledge, and Information (AKI) group, was deeply involved in making Siri’s responses smarter and more conversational. The project aimed to help Siri find accurate information directly from the Internet, not just from Apple’s built-in data. In other words, Apple was trying to make Siri capable of web searching like ChatGPT or Google’s Gemini — but with a personal touch.
According to a Bloomberg report, Yang has stepped down from his role at Apple and is set to join Meta in the coming days. People familiar with the situation shared that his departure could create a serious gap in Apple’s artificial intelligence plans, especially since his team was a central part of the Siri revamp project, which is expected to be ready by March 2026.
Yang’s work was crucial because he was helping Siri move beyond being just a voice assistant that answers simple questions. The goal was to make Siri capable of giving deeper, more useful responses by searching the web intelligently and presenting answers in a smooth, natural, and conversational tone — much like a real human conversation.
At present, Siri can perform Internet searches, but the results it gives are often very limited or surface-level. You might ask Siri a question, and it may show you a list of websites instead of actually answering your question clearly. Yang’s team was working to fix that by teaching Siri to find the right information and explain it in an easy-to-understand way, much like how chatbots such as ChatGPT, Gemini, or Perplexity AI work today.
The Siri upgrade project was a combined effort between two major groups inside Apple — the Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (AIML) division and the Siri engineering team. Ke Yang was part of the AIML group and directly reported to John Giannandrea, Apple’s Senior Vice President of AI and Machine Learning, who has been leading Apple’s broader AI push. Meanwhile, the Siri engineering team works under Craig Federighi, Apple’s Senior Vice President of Software Engineering. Together, these teams were building a smarter, faster, and more human-like version of Siri that could compete with the latest AI systems in the market.
Yang’s departure comes at a time when the competition in artificial intelligence is fiercer than ever. Companies like OpenAI, Google, and Meta are all racing to build the most advanced AI assistants. These systems can chat naturally, write essays, answer complex questions, and even help users make decisions. For Apple, staying in the race means they need to upgrade Siri — which has not seen a major change for years — to keep up with this new wave of AI-powered tools.
Meta’s decision to hire Ke Yang seems to be a part of its larger plan to strengthen its AI research and product development. Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, has been investing heavily in AI tools for social media, virtual reality, and the metaverse. By bringing in someone like Yang, Meta gains not only technical expertise but also valuable insight into how Apple was planning to make Siri smarter.
For Apple, however, this move could slow down progress. Losing a senior leader during a crucial stage of development can affect the team’s motivation and timeline. Yang’s knowledge about the Siri revamp was likely very specific and detailed, meaning his absence could leave behind a gap that may take months to fill. It also raises questions about how Apple will manage to deliver its upgraded Siri by March 2026 as planned.
Even though Apple has not made an official statement about Yang’s departure, reports suggest that he played a vital role in shaping Siri’s new direction. The company’s goal is to make Siri more capable of understanding context — that is, not just answering one question but remembering what the user asked before and connecting the information intelligently. For example, if you asked Siri, “Who is the president of France?” and then followed with, “How old is he?”, Siri would know you’re still talking about the president of France. This kind of natural conversation is something that modern AI chatbots already handle well, but Siri has been behind in this area for years.
Apple’s AI team, led by John Giannandrea, has been quietly working to close that gap. The Siri revamp is also seen as Apple’s chance to prove that it can compete with companies like Google and OpenAI in the fast-growing world of AI-driven search assistants. The new version of Siri is expected to use generative AI — technology that allows computers to create human-like text and speech — making interactions more fluid and useful for users.
Many tech experts believe that Apple’s future depends heavily on how well it can integrate AI into its products. Siri is one of Apple’s most recognized features, but it hasn’t evolved much since its debut. Meanwhile, competitors are racing ahead with chatbots that can write, talk, and even think creatively. So, Apple’s success with the Siri project could decide how strong it stands in the next phase of AI technology.
As one AI researcher commented, “Apple doesn’t want to be left behind in the AI revolution. Siri’s new version is their chance to show they can innovate just like the others.”
But with Ke Yang leaving for Meta, it remains to be seen how Apple will fill his place and keep the project on track. Will the team manage to deliver Siri’s smarter version on time? Or will this move give Meta an advantage in the AI race?
The world of artificial intelligence is changing fast, and every expert matters. As Apple and Meta continue to battle for AI leadership, one thing is clear — the war for talent has just begun.
