Former AI chief John Giannandrea officially leaves Apple this week after ‘resting and vesting’

John Giannandrea’s time at Apple officially comes to an end this week. giannandrea joined Apple in 2018 after eight years at Google to lead the company’s artificial intelligence and machine learning strategy.

In December last yearHowever, Apple announced that Giannandrea would leave his position and serve as an advisor to the company before leaving completely in spring 2026.

In the latest edition of his On In the newsletter, Mark Gurman reports that Giannandrea’s time as an Apple advisor ends this week. The timing correlates with Apple’s vesting date of April 15, meaning Giannandrea remained on Apple’s payroll until now to allow its next round of stock awards to vest. This is something that is colloquially known in the industry as “rest and vest.”

Gurman reports that Giannandrea’s plan after Apple is to “join the boards of some companies and do advisory work in the startup world.”

Apple has dramatically revolutionized its AI teams and organization in the wake of the debut of Apple Intelligence. In addition to the announcement of Giannandrea’s departure in December, Apple also announced had hired Amar Subramanya to be its vice president of AI, reporting to Craig Federighi. Subramanya spent 16 years at Google and five months at Microsoft before joining Apple.

Giannandrea had control of the Siri team stripped in March 2025 after Tim Cook reportedly “lost confidence” in his ability to “execute product development.” As things stand right now, Siri is headed by Mike Rockwell within Apple, while Giannandrea’s other responsibilities have been taken on by a combination of Craig Federighi, Eddy Cue, and Sabih Khan.

Apple is ready to announce Major new AI and Siri features as part of iOS 27 at WWDC in just two months. These will mark the first major developments since Federighi took charge and Apple signed its agreement with Google use Gemini models to drive new AI features.

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