Apple seems to be losing its ground slowly and is significantly falling behind in the AI race. The long-standing revamped Siri is still not here. Now it’s also losing the senior executive who is responsible for the AI Search development. Ke Yang, head of Apple’s AI Search project, left Apple to join Meta, as per Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman . Yang took over Apple’s newly created Answers, Knowledge, and Information Group, internally known as “AKI,” just a few weeks ago.
Head of Apple’s AI Search project joins Meta
The AKI team is apparently responsible for making Siri function more like ChatGPT. This includes the ability to retrieve live information from the web. AKI is the central component of the Siri overhaul, which may finally debut in March 2026 . The Siri overhaul could include features like allowing Siri to access personal data and handle more complex, multi-step requests.
What makes this significant is that Ke Yang was promoted as the head of AKI just weeks ago, following the departure of Robby Walker, who has been a longtime Apple executive leading the group. Before the promotion, Yang oversaw the search-focused portion of AKI. He was reporting directly to John Giannandrea, Apple’s senior vice president of machine learning and AI strategy.
Ke Yang was promoted to lead the AKI team just weeks ago
Now that Yang is no longer with Apple, the AKI team will report to Benoit Dupin, one of Giannandrea’s deputies responsible for Apple’s machine learning infrastructure. The AKI project reportedly holds great importance in Apple’s efforts to take on rivals like Google Gemini , OpenAI, and Perplexity.
Apple’s artificial intelligence division has reportedly seen more than a dozen senior executives exit this year alone. Yang is the latest to join the list now. A major portion of these exits were from Apple’s Foundation Models team, which is responsible for developing Apple’s core generative AI models. The unit was led by Ruoming Pang, who left for Meta earlier this year.
