Apple’s AI exodus continues with four deflections to the competition

It looks like Meta’s hiring freeze definitely does not apply to Apple engineers. As reported by Bloomberg, Jian Zhang, Apple’s Lead AI Researcher for Robotics, will be joining the Meta Robotics Studio. And he’s not the only one leaving. Here are the details.

Apple’s AI alternatives (and teams) keep getting slimmer

Last month, following a report that said that, despite Meta’s hiring freeze, there could be exceptions, Bloomberg reported that the company had poached Frank Chu, “who has led Apple AI teams focused on cloud infrastructure, training and search.”

Now, the tally just got a bit higher, as Bloomberg reported that Meta has also hired away Jian Zhang, Apple’s Lead AI Researcher for Robotics:

“Zhang, the robotics researcher, led a small team of academics focused on automation technology and the role of AI in such products. That team has already suffered some turnover, with one of Zhang’s reports, Mario Srouji, leaving to run AI products at Archer Aviation Inc. in April.”

Zhang’s departure coincides with Apple’s reported loss of three more Foundation Models engineers: John Peebles and Nan Du to OpenAI, and Zhao Meng to Anthropic.

Here’s Bloomberg on the new departures:

“They were all part of an Apple Foundation Models team that has lost roughly 10 members, including its chief, in recent weeks. The group was central to the creation of the Apple Intelligence platform, launched last year as part of the company’s bid to catch up in AI.”

The news comes on the heels of another Bloomberg report that said that “Apple is now discussing internally whether to rely more on outside technology, rather than just homegrown models.”

Apple is also still considering a splashy acquisition (with names like Mistral and Perplexity in the mix) while it also explores partnerships with OpenAI, Anthropic, and even Google to develop the models needed for the revamped, AI-driven Siri it unveiled at WWDC24 but never brought to market.

If you were Tim Cook, how would you stop Apple’s brain drain? Let us know in the comments.

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