Apple continues to lose top AI experts. The company's chief AI researcher in robotics, Jiang Zhang, has left Apple to join Meta, where he will work in its Robotics Studio division, Bloomberg reports.
At Apple, Zhang led a team that researched automation and applied AI to the company's robotics. One of his former colleagues, Mario Srouji, joined Archer Aviation in April, where he leads the AI product division.
In addition to Zhang, Apple also left three other researchers from the Foundation Models team, which is responsible for building the Apple Intelligence platform. These are John Peebles and Nan Du, who have moved to OpenAI, and Zhao Meng, who will work at Anthropic PBC.
According to Bloomberg, the Apple Foundation Models team has lost about ten members in recent weeks, including its leader Ruomin Pan, who previously moved to Meta on a multi-year contract worth $200 million.
Apple is currently considering expanding the use of third-party AI models in Apple Intelligence instead of its own, which is reportedly causing low morale among employees, some of whom are already looking for new jobs.