Apple has poached Google’s AI chief, John Giannandrea, to run its machine learning and AI operations, in the clearest sign yet that the iPhone creator is attempting to fix the problems that saw its early lead in the field crumble.
Scottish-born Giannandrea, who joined Google in 2010 after his startup, Metaweb, was acquired, has led the search firm’s push to become market leader in AI and machine learning. Under his command, Google Brain, the company’s main AI research team, has rebuilt the technology that underpins some of Google’s landmark products, including search, translation and voice recognition.
He also led Google into its position today, where it battles with Amazon for technological supremacy in the field of voice controlled assistants. That role was once held by Apple, whose Siri technology introduced the feature to many, but which failed to capitalise on the lead.
In March, technology site The Information detailed seven years of infighting within the Siri team at Apple, with multiple attempts to reorganise the basic technology that underpins the feature falling prey to internal politics which limited attempts to improve the overall product.
Siri’s problems came to a head in February, when the HomePod – Apple’s attempt to compete with Amazon’s Echo and Google’s Home smart speakers – received reviews which praised it for its audio quality even as they damned it for its poor AI.
In recent weeks, however, Apple has accelerated hiring for Siri, peaking with 161 openings posted in one day in March – and now Giannandrea’s hiring, first reported by the New York Times.
Beyond talent, though, the company has another issue to overcome: persuading customers that it can build an acceptable set of services without taking the same data-heavy approach favoured by Amazon and Google.
Where major technology firms have increased their acquisition of customer data in recent years, arguing that large datasets are crucial for training effective personalised AI, Apple has moved in the opposite direction, altering its technologies to gather less personal data about users than it used to.
It believes its users understand the value of privacy, and will accept a certain amount of friction in exchange for keeping their secrets secret. And the differing approach has offered chief executive Tim Cook the chance to hit out at competitors. Speaking last week, he said: “We could make a ton of money if we monetised our customers, if our customers were our product … We’ve elected not to do that. We’re not going to traffic in your personal life. Privacy to us is a human right, a civil liberty.”
