Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL), the computer maker, has reportedly poached John Giannandrea, Google’s (NASDAQ:GOOG) head of search and artificial intelligence, in a move that is designed to raise its game and improve the capabilities of Siri, its digital smart assistant, in the fiercely competitive artificial intelligence field.
The recruitment of Giannandrea, which was first reported by The New York Times, is regarded as a coup for the company, which has struggled to compete in the contest being waged among artificial intelligence gadgets like Amazon.com Inc.'s (NASDAQ:AMZN) Alexa and Google Assistant.
Management reshuffle at Google
Google, Amazon, Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) and Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) are all thought to be more advanced in the artificial intelligence field than Apple as they have access to more data on their users than Apple does.
In the wake of Giannandrea’s departure for Apple, a management shuffle is in place at Google and its search and artificial intelligence is being split into two units. Ben Gomes, who is currently vice-president of search engineering, will take the helm of Google’s search division, according to published reports.
Jeff Dean, a programmer who was one of the first employees at Google and a co-founder of the Google Brain team, will take control of Google’s artificial intelligence unit.
In pre-market trade, Apple shares were down 1.7% to US$165.50 while class A shares in Alphabet were down 1.7% to US$1,018.68.
