Apple loses more AI experts to Meta
A fourth Apple artificial intelligence expert has left the company to join Meta, reports Bloomberg. Bowen Zhang, who was part of Apple’s Foundation Models team, is the latest employee to leave the company. The head of Apple’s Foundation Models Group, Ruoming Pang, was one of the first Apple AI researchers to join the social media giant. Since then, several of his former employees have also left. Meta is actively hiring for its Superintelligence Labs, an AI division that develops advanced AI systems whose performance matches or exceeds human intelligence.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg has offered high compensation packages to AI engineers in an effort to lure them away from other companies. Pang reportedly received over $200 million for this. Meta’s compensation reportedly includes a high base salary, a signing bonus, and a stock package. The salary offered Pang exceeds the compensation of almost all Apple employees, except for executives. Presumably, the other AI engineers who left Apple also received offers that Apple is unwilling to fulfill.
Last month, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman stated that Meta had offered signing bonuses of up to $100 million and had also hired engineers and AI experts from Apple, OpenAI, and Anthropic. According to Bloomberg, Apple is “slightly” increasing the salaries of its foundation modeling team, but isn’t paying at Meta’s level.
Apple, Meta, Google, Samsung, and OpenAI battle for the AI throne
As Apple loses key employees to Meta, the company may continue to struggle to catch up in the AI race. Competitors such as Google and Samsung already have much more advanced AI capabilities, and Apple was forced this year to delay the promised Apple Intelligence Siri features on 2026.
Apple has restructured its AI teams. The AI efforts are now led by Apple software chief Craig Federighi and Mike Rockwell. Federighi led the development of Apple Vision Pro. Rumor has it that Apple is considering using technology from Anthropic or OpenAI instead of its own models for future AI features, including an LLM version of Siri.
Apple’s consideration of using third-party AI technology has reportedly led to declining morale in the base models team, which is now losing employees. Several engineers are reportedly actively interviewing with other AI companies, while Apple executives are trying to reassure team members that the company remains committed to internal AI development.
