The Scottish-born Giannandrea would oversee a group that united all of Apple’s AI work. Several employees say top executives had long believed the company’s challenges traced in part to the disaggregated nature of Apple’s AI efforts, which were divided among a slew of different product development teams. (The employees, like others interviewed for this article, requested anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.) Now, machine learning research, testing operations and Siri would be under one umbrella. Giannandrea would report directly to Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook, giving AI the same prominence as software, hardware and services, the main groups that make up Apple’s workforce.