In a strategic move to enhance its AI capabilities, Apple has reassigned veteran executive Kim Vorrath to its artificial intelligence team. Vorrath, who brings 37 years of experience at Apple, will now report to AI chief John Giannandrea after previously overseeing development of the Vision Pro headset.
Known internally as Apple's "bug wrangler," Vorrath has built a reputation for her meticulous project management style and ability to maintain strict deadlines. Her transfer comes at a critical time as Apple faces mounting pressure to improve Siri's performance and reliability.
Recent incidents have highlighted Siri's limitations, including its inability to accurately report Super Bowl results and issues with the Apple Intelligence Notification summary feature producing incorrect headlines. In response, Apple plans to temporarily remove notification summaries for news and entertainment apps in the upcoming iOS 18.3 update.
While Apple has attempted to enhance Siri by incorporating OpenAI's ChatGPT technology, users continue to report performance issues. The company plans to roll out additional Siri improvements in iOS 18.4, with a major overhaul expected in iOS 19 that will introduce a large language model version of Siri to compete with ChatGPT and Google's Gemini.
In an internal memo announcing Vorrath's appointment, Giannandrea emphasized the company's commitment to strengthening Siri's infrastructure and developing proprietary AI models. The executive shuffle signals Apple's growing focus on artificial intelligence as a key priority for the company's future.
Vorrath's expertise in organizing engineering teams and implementing new processes is expected to bring fresh perspective to Apple's AI initiatives as the company works to close the gap with competing virtual assistants.