Mike Rockwell "continues to seriously consider stepping down" as Apple's vice president of Siri engineering and could leave the company altogether next year, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. Gurman described the potential move as a major blow to Apple.
If Rockwell departs or moves to another role, responsibility for Siri would likely fall to one of two people. Amar Subramanya is a Google veteran hired last year to shore up Apple's AI efforts, and Sebastien Marineau, a deputy to software chief Craig Federighi, leads the teams integrating AI into iOS. Marineau is said to be seen by some inside Apple as a possible eventual successor to Federighi himself, and as someone "more all-in on the AI revolution."
As for Rockwell, he created the Vision Pro, before being put in charge of Siri's turnaround, but only after "an embarrassing two-year delay," as Gurman puts it. Reports of him weighing an exit from Apple first surfaced in April.
Hair Force One, however, isn't going anywhere, it seems. A succession to Federighi remains "a distant prospect," reckons Gurman. Federighi "maintains a firm grip" on Apple's software engineering organization and "has done little to prioritize succession planning or establish a clear path for a successor," according to his sources. Gurman adds that Federighi, who has led the organization for more than a decade, has given no indication that he is among Apple's senior leaders considering an exit in the coming years.
