• Search Engine Land
  • Sections
    • SEO
    • SEM
    • Mobile
    • Local
    • Retail
    • Google
    • Bing
    • Social
    • Home
  • Follow Us
    • Follow
  • Search Engine Land
  • SEO
  • SEM
  • Mobile
  • Local
  • Retail
  • Google
  • Bing
  • Social
  • More
  • Events
    • Follow
  • SUBSCRIBE

Search Engine Land

Search Engine Land

Events

Join us at SMX Advanced!

  • SEO
  • SEM
  • Mobile
  • Local
  • Retail
  • Google
  • Bing
  • Social
  • Newsletters
  • Home
Mobile

Sign up for our daily recaps of the ever-changing search marketing landscape.

Note: By submitting this form, you agree to Third Door Media's terms. We respect your privacy.


Ex-Googler John Giannandrea takes charge of Siri

Apple has merged Siri and its machine learning groups under Giannandrea’s leadership.

Greg Sterling on July 12, 2018 at 10:16 am
  • More

In February, Apple hired then Google SVP of Engineering John Giannandrea to oversee its machine learning and artificial intelligence efforts. In his eight years at Google, Giannandrea was responsible for machine learning improvements to various Google products, including search, Gmail and the Google Assistant.

At the time, we wrote that it wasn’t clear what Giannandrea’s involvement with Siri would be, but the virtual assistant definitely could definitely use his help. Indeed, earlier this week, Apple merged Siri and its machine learning groups under Giannandrea’s leadership. He’s now “Chief of Machine Learning and AI Strategy.”

His bio on the Apple site now reads:

John Giannandrea is Apple’s Chief of Machine Learning and AI Strategy, reporting to CEO Tim Cook. John joined Apple in 2018 and oversees the strategy for Artificial Intelligence and machine learning across the company and development of Core ML and Siri technologies.

The conventional wisdom is that Apple is far behind rivals, such as Google, Microsoft and Amazon, in machine learning and AI research and development. A report from The Information in January also discussed internal problems that plagued the development of Siri and potentially explain why it has fallen behind Google Assistant and Alexa.

Once the market leader and a differentiator for the iPhone, Siri is now commonly seen as a laggard, which is not totally accurate. While Google Assistant certainly offers a more complete experience than Siri (in part because of Google’s search index), my personal experience using all of these assistants doesn’t indicate a massive gap between them for common use cases. (Something like Google’s Duplex is another discussion.)

Giannandrea is clearly the right man to help reinvigorate Siri. He brings both deep speech recognition and search experience, having been a co-founder of voice recognition pioneer Tellme and semantic knowledge platform Metaweb.

There’s a lot of hype surrounding AI, but it’s clear that it’s a core success variable going forward.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai said in 2017, “We’re moving from a mobile-first world to an AI-first world,” reflecting the company’s emphasis on machine learning and AI. Its ongoing investments were also just showcased in a set of announcements of new automated ad products.



About The Author

Greg Sterling
Greg Sterling is a Contributing Editor at Search Engine Land. He writes a personal blog, Screenwerk, about connecting the dots between digital media and real-world consumer behavior. He is also VP of Strategy and Insights for the Local Search Association. Follow him on Twitter or find him at Google+.

Popular Stories

Updated: The big list of Google Easter eggs
Study argues Yelp drives higher conversions than Google and Facebook
What Could Save The Yellow Pages? 10 Ideas
Are you ready for the attribution changes coming to Google AdWords?

Related Topics

AppleApple: SiriChannel: Mobile

Sign up for our daily recaps of the ever-changing search marketing landscape.

Note: By submitting this form, you agree to Third Door Media's terms. We respect your privacy.


We're listening.

Have something to say about this article? Share it with us on Facebook, Twitter or our LinkedIn Group.

Attend Our Conferences

April 2-3, 2019: SMX Munich

May 21-22, 2019: SMX London

June 3-5, 2019: SMX Advanced

June 12-13, 2019: SMX Paris

Sept 30 - Oct 1, 2019: SMX Advanced Europe

November 13-14, 2019: SMX East

×

Attend SMX - Click Here


Learn More About Our SMX Events

Gain new strategies and insights at the intersection of marketing, technology, and management. Our next conference will be held:

April 3-5, 2019: San Jose

September 16-18, 2019: Boston

×

Attend MarTech - Click Here


Learn More About Our MarTech Events

White Papers

  • The Ultimate Guide to Site Search User Experience
  • The Marketing Analytics Buyer’s Guide 2019
  • Mission Possible: Quality Content Marketing
  • 2019 Marketing Trends: Nine factors reshaping marketing and how you can stay ahead of them
  • The Dummies Guide to Enterprise Customer Data Platforms
See More Whitepapers

Webinars

  • From Site Search to Conversion: Strategies to increase website revenue
  • Google’s Black Box Bidding Solution: A look under the hood
  • 2019 Martech Trends You Need To Know
See More Webinars

Research Reports

  • B2B Marketing Automation Platforms
  • Account-Based Marketing Tools
  • Enterprise SEO Platforms
  • Call Analytics Platforms
  • Paid Media Campaign Management Platforms
  • Local Marketing Automation Tools
See More Research

Search Engine Land’s Guide To SEO

Search Engine Land’s Guide To SEO
Sign up for our daily newsletter.
Search Engine Land
Download the Search Engine Land app on iTunes Download the Search Engine Land App on Google Play

Follow Us

© 2019 Third Door Media, Inc. All rights reserved.