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Meta Hires Apple’s Newly Promoted AKI Leader Ke Yang, Raising Questions for Siri Overhaul

AKI now reports to Benoit Dupin following the leadership change.

Overview

  • Ke Yang is leaving Apple just weeks after being elevated to lead the Answers, Knowledge and Information team, with Bloomberg reporting he will join Meta’s Superintelligence Labs.
  • AKI has been building a ChatGPT‑style web answer engine for Siri that can pull live information, a core piece of Apple’s planned assistant revamp targeted for around March 2026.
  • With Yang’s departure, Apple reassigned AKI to Benoit Dupin, a deputy overseeing machine‑learning cloud infrastructure under AI chief John Giannandrea.
  • Yang’s exit follows earlier leadership turnover, including the departure of prior AKI head Robby Walker, and adds to roughly a dozen recent losses from Apple’s Foundation Models/AIML groups.
  • Several of those who left Apple, including Ruoming Pang, Chong Wang and Frank Chu, have joined Meta, and outlets report concern that the Siri/search timeline could face added pressure; Apple and Meta have not commented.