GG News Bureau
Cupertino, 8th July: In a major setback to Apple’s artificial intelligence strategy, the company’s top executive overseeing foundation AI models, Ruoming Pang, is leaving to join Meta Platforms Inc. Pang’s departure marks the most significant AI leadership exit at Apple to date and underscores the intensifying talent war in Silicon Valley’s race for AI dominance.
Pang, a distinguished engineer who joined Apple from Alphabet in 2021, headed the Apple Foundation Models (AFM) team — a group of around 100 engineers responsible for the large language models powering Apple Intelligence and the upcoming overhaul of Siri. According to sources, Meta offered Pang a compensation package worth tens of millions of dollars annually to lead efforts in its new “superintelligence” division.
Pang’s move comes amid internal turmoil at Apple, where leadership recently began exploring outsourcing core AI functions to third-party providers like OpenAI or Anthropic — a move that reportedly dampened morale within the AFM team. Sources indicate more exits could follow, with several Apple engineers already eyeing positions at Meta or elsewhere.
Meta’s AI Arms Race
At Meta, CEO Mark Zuckerberg has declared artificial intelligence his top priority, restructuring teams in late June to focus on building superintelligent AI capable of outperforming humans in complex tasks. Meta is spending tens of billions of dollars this year on AI infrastructure and talent. Pang now joins a high-powered team that includes AI leaders like Scale AI’s Alexandr Wang, OpenAI researcher Yuanzhi Li, Anthropic’s Anton Bakhtin, and former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman.
Zuckerberg has been personally involved in recruiting, often hosting candidates at his homes in Silicon Valley and Lake Tahoe. Meta’s deep pockets and aggressive pursuit of top talent have made it one of the most formidable AI employers in the world.
Trouble Inside Apple’s AI Unit
Pang’s team at Apple developed core AI features such as Genmoji, Priority Notifications, email and article summaries, and new Siri functionalities. These models were also recently opened up to third-party developers for the first time. However, internal changes have disrupted momentum.
Earlier this year, Apple AI chief John Giannandrea saw key responsibilities — including Siri, robotics, and Core ML — reassigned to others after delays in AI feature rollouts. Apple’s current AI strategy is now led by software chief Craig Federighi and Mike Rockwell, the engineer behind the Apple Vision Pro, while Giannandrea oversees AI research.
The AFM team now falls under the leadership of Zhifeng Chen, with a restructured chain of command involving multiple new managers. Among those being considered for expanded roles are Chong Wang, Zirui Wang, Chung-Cheng Chiu, and Guoli Yin.
Tom Gunter, one of Pang’s top deputies, had also quietly exited Apple last month.
Apple Playing Catch-Up
Apple’s AI announcements at its June Worldwide Developers Conference were underwhelming compared to rivals. Many of the headline features — such as AI call and message translation, screenshot analysis, and image generation — relied on external partners like OpenAI and Google. Even Apple’s own developer platform, Xcode, now integrates third-party AI tools like Claude and ChatGPT for code completion.
With Pang’s departure, Apple’s AI leadership vacuum widens at a time when rivals are accelerating forward. Meta’s talent raids — and Apple’s internal missteps — could further erode the iPhone maker’s ability to compete in the next phase of the AI revolution.
