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Apple is disbanding a team of 121 employees handling the company’s artificial intelligence (AI) in San Diego. This team, called Data Operations Annotations, was told they have to move to Austin and join the Texas team. If they don’t want to move, they might lose their jobs. This news comes from Bloomberg, citing people in the know. Interestingly, Apple may be pushing limits to regain momentum. Notably, Microsoft recently dethroned Apple to become the most valuable company with a market cap of $2.89 trillion.
Apple wants to shift its AI team to Texas from San Diego
Apple is moving its AI team in San Diego, which checks if Siri is working well, to Austin, Texas. The San Diego team has 121 people, and if they don’t want to move, they might lose their jobs on April 26. This team listens to Siri recordings in different languages like Hebrew, English, Spanish, and Arabic to make sure Siri responds correctly, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman noted.
The announcement about the move comes from Apple’s Senior Vice President of ML/AI strategy, John Giannandrea. He is tasked with Siri development and the Apple Car project. Before joining Apple, he spent over 8 years at Google as head of Machine Learning.
Many affected workers in San Diego express reluctance to relocate to Austin. And some are feeling ineligible for roles due to a lack of engineering backgrounds. Apple has encouraged employees to apply for other positions. However, they haven’t received sufficient information about their future employment prospects.
Well, there are quite a few perks for those moving to Austin
Apple is offering a $7,000 relocation stipend to employees relocating to Austin by the end of June. Therefore, those declining the move will have their roles eliminated, receiving severance pay based on their length of service, along with six months of health insurance. Despite Apple’s previous avoidance of significant layoffs during the pandemic, this recent move may lead to some employees leaving the company.
All in all, Apple is striving hard to reclaim its position as the world’s most valuable company and prepping to ship the Apple Vision Pro in the US starting February 2.