Apple Overhauls Siri Leadership Following Internal Meeting on AI Strategy

Apple’s push to overhaul Siri and take artificial intelligence more seriously began with a secret internal meeting in early 2025 that exposed how far the company had fallen behind competitors, according to Bloomberg’s Power On newsletter and later reporting summarized by AppleInsider. The gathering became a turning point for Apple’s AI strategy and ultimately helped set up the leadership changes behind the new Siri effort.

At the time, Apple was under pressure from the weak reception to Apple Intelligence and repeated delays to the Siri upgrade the company had promised, Bloomberg reported. The meeting brought together top executives in a conference room near the software engineering group, where they confronted the scale of the problem and the risk that Apple would remain behind in a fast-moving AI market.

The session was notable for who was there and who was not. According to AppleInsider’s summary of Bloomberg’s reporting, CEO Tim Cook did not attend, but then-COO Jeff Williams opened the meeting. Also present were senior figures including Alan Dye, then the head of interface design, and Mike Rockwell, who led Apple Vision Pro. The discussion focused on the crisis around Apple Intelligence and the delayed Siri revamp, and it quickly turned into a proposal for Cook on how to respond.

One key outcome was a shift in responsibility toward software chief Craig Federighi and Rockwell, who emerged as the executive put forward to take on the Siri overhaul. AppleInsider reported that the same group later concluded leadership changes were necessary, with Rockwell suggested to lead Siri and Amar Subramanya later chosen as another AI leader reporting to Federighi. The changes reflected Apple’s recognition that incremental adjustments would not be enough.

The episode matters because Siri has long been one of Apple’s most visible consumer products, and its shortcomings have become increasingly obvious as rivals have moved faster on generative AI. Apple’s internal reassessment suggests the company now sees AI not as an experimental side project, but as a central competitive issue affecting its software platform, device strategy, and customer expectations.

The reporting also indicates that Cook became more directly involved after the setbacks, underscoring how seriously Apple began treating the problem once the scope of the delay was clear. With WWDC 2026 approaching, Bloomberg’s newsletter also pointed readers to expectations for Apple’s next steps, suggesting the company is now trying to show that the internal reset is translating into product progress.