Meta Gains Apple AI Executive Amid Talent War: Explained
As AI capabilities increase, so does the competition.
Over the last few months, there have been rumblings over Meta forming a “superintelligence” team – and now, Apple has lost its top AI executive to it.
In Meta’s latest move of intensifying competition for AI talent, it has attracted Ruoming Pang, a distinguished engineer who managed Apple’s foundation models team.
Meta secured Ruoming’s services with a compensation package worth tens of millions of dollars per year, Bloomberg says according to people familiar with the matter.
The hire is another big acquisition for Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who has been aggressively and personally been recruiting AI leaders – but what is this team about? And why is it attracting such big AI leaders?
Meta’s AI hiring spree targeting industry leaders
Mark has personally involved himself in recruitment efforts, hosting potential hires at his homes in Silicon Valley and Lake Tahoe.
The company has also brought on other leading AI experts including:
- Scale AIās CEO Alexandr Wang
- Former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman
- Former CEO and Co-founder of Safe Superintelligence Daniel Gross
- OpenAI researcher Yuanzhi Li and other researchers
- Claude and Anthropic expert Anton Bakhtin
Meta restructured its AI teams in June to focus on āsuperintelligenceā ā AI technology capable of completing tasks as well as or better than humans.
Meta reportedly will spend tens of billions of dollars on AI-related efforts this year, with much of that investment directed toward infrastructure including data centres and computer chips.
Appleās foundation models team faces internal scrutiny
At Apple, Ruoming led a roughly 100-person team responsible for large language models (LLMs) that power Apple Intelligence, the companyās suite of AI features integrated into its operating systems and other AI features.
In June, Apple announced these models would be opened to third-party developers for the first time, enabling new iPhone and iPad applications.
However, the foundation models team has come under scrutiny from new leadership, which is exploring third-party models from OpenAI or Anthropic to power a new version of Siri, Appleās voice assistant.
These internal discussions have affected morale within the foundation models team, known as AFM, in recent weeks.
The company has simultaneously been developing a new Siri version based on models from Ruoming’s group whilst exploring external solutions.
Ruoming’s models currently power Apple Intelligence features that operate on Apple devices, including email and web article summaries, Genmoji and Priority Notifications.
Departure signals potential exodus from Apple AI division
Ruoming’s departure marks the most significant loss in Apple’s AI ranks since the company began working on Apple Intelligence.
Several engineers have told colleagues they plan to leave the AFM group for Meta or other companies in the near future.
Tom Gunter, a top deputy to Ruoming, left Apple last month.
Furthermore, the foundation models team reports to Daphne Luong, a Deputy to AI Senior Vice President John Giannandrea – and John was sidelined internally earlier this year, losing control of Siri, robotics, Core ML and App Intents frameworks.
The changes followed a poor response to Apple Intelligence and continued delays for new Siri features, including the ability to access user data to fulfil commands.
Apple’s restructuring following Pang’s departure
With Ruoming’s departure, the AFM team will be led by Zhifeng Chen.
The new structure will also include multiple managers reporting to Chen, departing from Ruoming’s direct management approach
Apple’s AI strategy is now primarily managed by Craig Federighi, Head of Software Engineering and Mike Rockwell, who helped create the Apple Vision Pro headset and now leads Siri engineering.
John oversees Apple’s AI research division.
