In the November 8 update of his "Power On" newsletter, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reported that Mike Rockwell, who led the development of the Vision Pro headset and then took on the leadership of the new Siri AI project, is still seriously considering leaving his current role.
He may step down as VP of Siri engineering as early as next year, or even leave Apple entirely. The new Siri was delayed by a full two years before it barely made it to market, and Rockwell was a key driving force behind it—the new version, originally envisioned to deeply embed AI into the system, was dragged by him all the way out of the quagmire of delays and into the spotlight. If someone who personally pushed the product to launch turns and leaves, it would undoubtedly be another heavy blow to Apple's AI business, which is already lagging behind.
The succession chessboard has quietly been set If Rockwell does leave or change roles, the baton will most likely be passed to two people: Amar Subramanya, recruited from Google last year to focus on strengthening the AI business, and Sebastien Marineau, a deputy to Federighi. Many internally believe that Marineau is expected to succeed Federighi as head of software engineering in the future. He is also more proactive about AI, and his team is focused on integrating AI into the iOS system, with a noticeably more aggressive pace than his predecessor.
However, this game is far from the point of making a move—Federighi has led software engineering for more than a decade and firmly holds control. He has neither put successor training on the agenda nor established a clear succession arrangement, so potential successors naturally have fewer windows to compete for the opportunity. At this critical juncture as Siri regroups, an undercurrent of personnel changes is quietly rewriting Apple AI's chain of command.
