Apple's AI Crisis Deepens as Meta Snaps Up More Top Talent

Meta has hired two more key AI researchers from Apple, continuing its aggressive talent raid on the iPhone maker's team just weeks after poaching their former boss. The move adds to the growing turmoil inside Apple's AI division, which one senior member recently likened to a "foundering ship" that's "been sinking for a long time."

According to a new report from Bloomberg, Mark Lee and Tom Gunter have left Apple to join their former manager, Ruoming Pang, at Meta's Superintelligence Labs. The two were considered senior members of Apple's Foundation Models group, with Lee known as Pang's first hire and Gunter holding the title of distinguished engineer. Gunter reportedly joined another AI firm for a short period after leaving Apple before ultimately moving to Meta.

The talent drain comes as Meta reportedly offers compensation packages that are several multiples higher than what Apple pays its AI engineers. The raid began earlier this month when Meta secured Ruoming Pang with a deal said to be worth over $200 million. Gunter is said to be among several other experts receiving multiyear packages exceeding $100 million. In a bid to stem further departures, Apple has reportedly started offering raises to some of the roughly 100 engineers in its AI group, though these offers are said to fall far short of Meta's.


This aggressive recruiting comes as Apple grapples with what has been described as an "AI crisis." The company has been forced to delay a major Siri overhaul until at least 2026, and its top AI executives are reportedly considering using outside models from OpenAI or Anthropic to power future Apple Intelligence features. This internal uncertainty has reportedly made it easier for rivals like Meta to capitalize.

The struggles with Siri have already prompted a significant leadership shake-up. Vision Pro creator Mike Rockwell and software chief Craig Federighi have taken charge of Siri's engineering, with Rockwell now leading the "Siri LLM" project. The move stripped AI chief John Giannandrea of oversight for Siri, though he continues to manage the development of Apple's foundational AI models.

Meanwhile, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has made it clear he intends to build the "most elite and talent-dense team in the industry," reportedly assigning top AI hires desks near his own at Meta's headquarters. This week, he posted on Threads that Meta would "invest hundreds of billions of dollars into compute to build superintelligence," underscoring the company's all-in approach to the AI race.

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