A report by the Information describes how Apple's Siri efforts
have been impacted by "organizational dysfunction and a lack of
ambition," causing Apple to fall behind Google, Microsoft, and OpenAI.
The findings were based on interviews with over three dozen former Apple employees in AI and machine learning.
- According
to the interviews, Apple's Siri team has been derided by employees who
are concerned about Apple's ability to build new AI products based on
generative AI.
- They specifically cited issues in improving
Siri and its backend technology. Retention has been a problem, with some
Siri engineers leaving for Google to work on large language models.
- Additionally, the report describes how an Apple team developing its Reality Pro headset was disappointed with demos showing the AI assistant controlling the mixed-reality device.
- Because
of Siri's limitations, that team once weighed alternative methods for
controlling the headset but ultimately rejected that idea.
- A previous report by The NYT says Apple engineers, including those from the Siri unit, have been testing out language-generating AI methods.
- The
report details how Apple, Amazon, and Google have fallen behind in the
AI race as their voice assistant technologies trail more popular chatbot
tools like ChatGPT.
