Apple Cuts 150 Siri and Vision Pro Jobs Amid Greater AI Focus

Apple is laying off nearly 150 employees as it restructures to focus on artificial intelligence, the Los Angeles Times reported Thursday (Aug. 27).

The job cuts are at Apple’s Cupertino headquarters and Sunnyvale offices, the report said. Many of the affected jobs are in software engineering and machine learning, specifically on teams working on Apple’s Siri digital assistant and the Vision Pro headset projects. Apple also cut 57 jobs in Escondido in June.

Apple last year paused work on the Vision Pro as it shifted attention to developing smart glasses to take on Meta’s Ray-Ban glasses.

Bloomberg reported Friday (Aug. 21) that about 100 jobs were being eliminated from the Vision Pro organization, and another 100 were being cut from the Siri and software teams. The report also said Apple planned to create some positions to support the upcoming AI-infused version of Siri, while adding new roles to the company’s Intelligence Systems Experience team.

Apple told workers that the Vision Pro isn’t going away, but the company is more interested now in developing smart glasses that won’t support immersive video or games, per the Bloomberg report. The company is realigning some teams to “deliver the best experiences for our users,” and while it is creating “new roles as part of this change, it will also impact a limited number of existing roles.”

The job cuts are happening before a leadership change at Apple. CEO Tim Cook is due to step down next week, and hardware chief John Ternus is set to succeed him.

While Apple’s cuts are relatively small compared to the tens of thousands of layoffs at competitors such as Amazon, Block, Meta, Oracle and Snap, they are part of a larger industry-wide transition, the LA Times report said.

During the first four months of this year, tech companies in the United States cut 123,653 jobs, a 66% jump from the same period one year earlier.

Outplacement firm Challenger, Gray and Christmas said in June that advancements in AI tools are transforming roles, as some executives argue they need fewer employees when their staff uses AI to generate code and create content.

At the same time, a study published in June by corporate card firm Ramp and workforce analytics firm Revelio Labs found that some companies considered “high-intensity” AI adopters expanded their headcount two years after adoption.

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