Meta Poaches Two More Researchers from Apple, What’s Happening Within Apple?

TradingKey - Meta has once again lured talent from Apple, securing two researchers following the high-profile recruitment of top AI researcher Rongming Pang with a staggering $200 million package. The company has hired Mark Lee and Tom Gunter to join its superintelligence lab, according to Bloomberg.

Reportedly, Lee was a close associate of Pang during his tenure at Apple, while Gunter was a senior member of Apple's AI Foundation Models (AFM) team. Meta's CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, is sparing no expense in the race for AI talent, a move that not only highlights the fierce competition among tech giants but also brings to light internal issues within Apple's teams.

The AFM team is tasked with developing technology to support generative AI. However, Apple's senior AI executives are considering employing large language models from Anthropic or OpenAI to power Siri and other Apple Intelligence features, leading to uncertainty about the team’s future.

This may not be the core issue, though. Dissonance among Apple's top leaders over AI priorities is hindering decision-making within the R&D teams, potentially creating further challenges for the AFM team.

According to Bloomberg, Apple's senior software head, Craig Federighi, has been reluctant to invest heavily in AI, not viewing it as a core capability for mobile devices until the rise of ChatGPT. Even then, he only committed to investments in the tens of millions for language model development, while OpenAI's investment in large models reached billions, with over $10 billion in funding.

While Apple's AI investments are on the rise, missing the ideal window for developing large models has left the company trailing far behind its competitors. Apple's progress in AI functionalities has been underwhelming in recent years, with delays in delivering promised Apple Intelligence features at the WWDC and a general lack of innovation. As the tech industry pivots towards AI-focused R&D, Apple's stagnation makes it stand out as an outlier.

Sources reveal that Rongming Pang’s departure may have been just the beginning of key personnel exits from Apple’s AI team, with several engineers reportedly planning to leave soon. Analysts predict that losing core AI talent consecutively could impact Apple’s AI R&D progress.

So far this year, Apple’s stock has fallen over 16%, significantly underperforming the S&P 500 and Nasdaq indices.