Apple Begins Siri Turnaround, Led By Mike Rockwell
Mike Rockwell, head of engineering for the assistant, is replacing much of Siri’s leadership with lieutenants from his Vision Pro software group, according to people with knowledge of the matter. He’s also restructuring teams related to speech, understanding, performance and user experience, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the changes are private.
I’m almost glad Apple missed the mark so much with the first post-LLM Siri release. Sometimes, what you need is a big public blunder to shake things up internally and enact real change. Over the last decade, Siri has been coasting along, with somewhat rudderless leadership, buffeted by organisational bureaucracy and apathy in the executive team. The high-profile failings of late are exactly the kind of seismic event that forces management to start over from scratch, and dedicate whatever means necessary to make a concerted effort to turn the ship around.
With Federighi fully backing the work, and Rockwell at the helm, the Siri group finally has the political capital to get all of Apple’s top talent and resources on task to re-engineer Siri from the ground up. Before, Siri was always seen as someone else’s problem. Now, it’s a priority. Whatever Rockwell thinks he needs to do this properly, he is going to actually get it.