Apple is behind on synthetic intelligence.
Now, the corporate is on the point of unleash its first wave of user-facing AI merchandise. And behind that push is John Giannandrea, a Silicon Valley veteran who’s Apple’s high govt accountable for AI technique.
On Monday, Apple will maintain its annual builders convention referred to as WWDC, the place it is anticipated to point out prospects and traders its tackle generative AI throughout merchandise just like the iPhone, iPad and Mac, the fruit of Giannandrea’s work.
There’s monumental strain on Apple to ship a formidable slate of AI services. In interviews with CNBC, a number of individuals who know and have labored with Giannandrea through the years depict him as a humble and ahead-of-the-curve technologist, a high quality that could possibly be important to Apple catching up in AI.
Siri is a multitude and struggles with even probably the most fundamental questions. Apple would not promote a product just like the AI chatbots being pushed out by Microsoft or startups OpenAI and Anthropic. It would not promote highly effective chips to cloud corporations working AI companies like Nvidia. Apple inventory has lagged whereas shares of its friends have ballooned this 12 months on the promise of AI. The inventory is up simply 1% this 12 months, whereas Nvidia, which overtook Apple in market worth on Wednesday, is up 144%. Apple additionally misplaced its spot as probably the most useful public firm on this planet to a different AI chief, Microsoft, in January.
Apple declined to remark.
Wall Road sees this as a second for Apple to show it is not behind on AI, serving as a catalyst for the inventory via the second half of the 12 months and spurring a sizzling improve cycle for the following iPhone mannequin.
“We imagine that AI options, mixed with different Apple ecosystem investments and {hardware} upgrades for iPhone 16, has the potential to drive upside to product estimates by growing improve charges,” Morgan Stanley analysts wrote in a observe to traders this week.
Now it is as much as Giannandrea and his group to match these expectations.
Because the tech world turned more and more obsessive about AI during the last 18 months or so, Apple started to speak extra brazenly about how AI powers product options and growth.
“We view AI and [machine learning] as elementary, core applied sciences, and they’re just about embedded in each product that we construct,” Apple CEO Tim Prepare dinner advised CNBC in August of 2023.
Till now, Giannandrea’s group has labored on AI options that run behind the scenes on Apple units and software program. That features issues like an accessibility characteristic that may digitally mimic somebody’s voice in the event that they lose the power to talk themselves, or automated edits that make your iPhone photographs look higher.
When you ask the parents at Apple, the corporate has been utilizing AI for a few years to energy what you do in your Apple units with out you even realizing about it. That is anticipated to evolve into extra user-facing options this 12 months, like enhancements to the Siri digital assistant, a partnership with OpenAI that’ll add the ChatGPT-maker’s tech to the iPhone’s software program and complex voice controls for its apps, in line with a Bloomberg report final week.
Individuals who have labored with Giannandrea through the years who spoke to CNBC characterize him as a humble, mild-mannered technologist who would not search consideration like extra flashy Silicon Valley executives usually do.
His most notable begin was at an organization referred to as Normal Magic, which spun out of Apple and commenced enterprise within the early Nineties making software program for PDAs, the predecessors to immediately’s fashionable smartphones. Late in that decade he cofounded TellMe, a startup that made a voice-activated, on-line info service.
A TellMe cofounder, Anthony Accardi, mentioned Giannandrea at all times appeared forward of his time, engaged on expertise like working software program within the cloud a few years earlier than it turned the usual.
“He has the foresight to acknowledge that is an inevitability and course we’re going sooner or later,” Accardi mentioned.
Giannandrea, recognized by most as “JG,” joined Google after the search big acquired one other startup he cofounded referred to as Metaweb.
Geoffrey Hinton, often known as one of many “godfathers” of AI, labored with Giannandrea at Google. Hinton mentioned Giannandrea had a uncommon skillset amongst tech executives as each an ideal researcher and supervisor. Hinton pointed to a generative AI breakthrough Google made final decade: the power to mechanically caption pictures utilizing AI.
“He actually understood the significance of it,” Hinton mentioned.
By 2018, Giannandrea oversaw AI at Google, and it was seen as an enormous coup when Apple poached him that 12 months. Inside eight months, he was promoted to Apple’s management group, reporting on to Prepare dinner together with different high executives like Chief Working Officer Jeff Williams and companies boss Eddy Cue. It was the most important signal but Apple was taking AI critically, particularly for future tasks like its now-defunct self-driving automobile venture.
So why depart Google, the perceived chief in AI on the time, for Apple? He did not like how management at Google had hassle making selections and executing them, as a substitute treating elements of the enterprise like a skunkworks analysis lab, in line with one one that spoke to Giannandrea not too long ago. He discovered the alternative at Apple: management decides, after which the remainder of the corporate will get behind it to make it occur.
However within the six years since becoming a member of Apple, Giannandrea hasn’t been within the public view like his friends on Apple’s management group typically are, exhibiting off the corporate’s newest merchandise and updates in flashy promotional movies affected by slick edits and pa jokes. But his a few years of expertise and experience have earned him huge respect amongst different Silicon Valley leaders.
“I nonetheless go to him for knowledge,” mentioned Emil Michael, a former high govt at Uber who additionally cofounded TellMe with Giannandrea.
Exterior of Apple, Giannandrea sits on the board of SETI, the nonprofit group based in 1984 to detect radio indicators from potential clever life throughout the cosmos. He additionally ran an information middle enterprise together with his spouse in recent times, which he ultimately bought, including to his record of profitable exits at tech corporations he cofounded.
At SETI, Giannadrea is an energetic and engaged board member, and even gave a few of his personal cash to assist fund a brand new venture referred to as COSMIC that makes use of highly effective computer systems to investigate radio indicators from outer house, SETI CEO Invoice Diamond advised CNBC. Giannandrea additionally sat on a SETI overview committee to provide suggestions on analysis plans for planetary defenses in opposition to asteroids, in line with Diamond.
“He is bought a really scientific thoughts, an engineering thoughts,” Diamond mentioned. “The query about life past Earth fascinates him.”
Some who know Giannandrea advised CNBC they’d be shocked if he made an look throughout Apple’s WWDC keynote subsequent week, as a substitute delegating the highlight to members of his group or Craig Federighi, Apple’s head of software program.
“JG isn’t a showman,” one one that is aware of him effectively advised CNBC. “That is not his vibe.”
