Apple CEO Ternus presses Federighi on AI, Bloomberg says

Apple ↘ 0.52% CEO John Ternus has told software chief Craig Federighi to move faster on artificial intelligence, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reported on Sunday, November 8. Ternus wants Apple to go past fixing Siri and turn it into an autonomous agent that can complete tasks for users. The report suggests tension inside Apple's leadership, just as the company starts work on next year's iOS 28.bloomberg.com

A private push for urgency

Gurman wrote that Ternus held a closed-door meeting with Federighi in recent weeks. Federighi became Apple's AI czar after the company dismissed its former AI leader last year. According to the report, Ternus is "frustrated by what he sees as a reluctance to embrace AI with the same urgency as competitors" and pushed Federighi "to accelerate the company's road map".bloomberg.com

In public, Ternus has sounded more confident. On his first earnings call as CEO the week before, he said Siri is "primarily request-based today" but sits on "a modern orchestrator-driven architecture that gives us real room to expand its capabilities over time". Gurman compared the target to agents such as OpenAI's Dots and wrote that Apple could make Siri "more like an agent as early as next year". Apple has not announced an agent version of Siri or given a date for one.9to5mac.com+2

The report also describes Federighi's management style. He takes a hands-on role in decisions, and some employees say that leaves little room for competing ideas. He also tends to plan only 12 to 18 months ahead, while Apple's hardware teams use roadmaps that run for years.9to5mac.com

iOS 28 process change and Rockwell's future

Apple normally builds each year's operating systems in three stages. Each stage has four weeks of coding and four weeks of "convergence," when new features are merged into the system. For the first stage of iOS 28 and macOS 28, engineers got six weeks of coding and only two weeks of convergence, which works out to 50% more coding time. "Employees say they like the change," Gurman wrote.macrumors.com

Mike Rockwell created the Vision Pro and led development of the new Siri. Gurman reported that he "continues to seriously consider stepping down," which could mean leaving his role as vice president of Siri engineering, or Apple itself, next year.9to5mac.com

A rebuilt Siri, still catching up

Federighi, Rockwell and the Siri team rebuilt the assistant's engine from scratch. They used models based on technology Apple licenses from Google Alphabet Inc. ↗ 0.78%. The upgraded Siri shipped with iOS 27, about two years after Apple first showed it in 2024.bloomberg.com

Not everyone accepts how the report frames things. AppleInsider argued that it doesn't match what outsiders can see. In its view, Apple's local-first strategy has kept it clear of the heavy AI spending its rivals have made, and the report "can be taken with a grain of salt".appleinsider.com