Apple has made some big changes in recent months — here's a look at the top new hires and moves you might have missed (AAPL)

Tim Cook

For Apple, 2019 is already shaping up to be a year marked by change.

Following the company’s announcement in November that it would no longer break out iPhone unit sales in earnings reports, the firm is making several key leadership changes as it prioritizes other emerging product segments like digital services, artificial intelligence and autonomous vehicles, which The Wall Street Journal outlined in a report on Monday. The changes are likely part of an ongoing effort by Apple to reduce its reliance on the iPhone as it grapples with plummeting smartphone sales.

Here’s a look at some of the key hires and leadership shifts Apple has made in recent months, which impact various branches of the company from retail to artificial intelligence, battery development and self-driving cars.

Doug Field returns to Apple to work on the company's self-driving car efforts

Field rejoined Apple last August to work on Apple’s self-driving car program, Project Titan, which tech blogger John Gruber and Reuters first reported at the time. Field spent five years at Tesla before returning to Apple, where he served as the company’s senior vice president of engineering according to his LinkedIn page. During his prior tenure at Apple, Field was a vice president of hardware engineering on the Mac team.

In his current role, Field oversees the day-to-day responsibilities of the 1,400 people working on Apple’s autonomous vehicle project, according to The Wall Street Journal. Longtime senior Apple executive Bob Mansfield is said to be leading Apple's self-driving car project.

Exactly what will come of Project Titan remains uncertain. When speaking with Bloomberg in 2017, Cook suggested that the company was focusing its efforts on software for self-driving cars rather than producing vehicles, calling it "the mother of all AI projects."

John Giannandrea promoted to Senior Vice President of Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence Strategy

Apple promoted Giannandrea to its executive team in December, which the company announced at the end of last year. Giannandrea now oversees Siri as part of his new role following the departure of Bill Stasior, the executive formerly in charge of the company’s digital assistant. The shift in Siri leadership was reported by both The Wall Street Journal and The Information.

Apple hired Giannandrea away from Google in April 2018, where he played a critical role in incorporating artificial intelligence into the company’s products. In 2016, Google tapped Giannandrea to oversee its search organization, a testament that speaks to just how critical AI is for the search giant.

Giannandrea’s promotion comes as Apple has made a push to incorporate Siri more tightly into its products and expand its capabilities over the past several years. The news also comes as Amazon and Google continue to enhance their own digital assistants, with the online retail giant integrating Alexa into everything from wall clocks to microwaves. When it comes to smart home speakers, Amazon is currently the market leader accounting for 63% of smart speaker usage in the United States according to Strategy Analytics. Google is responsible for 17% of the market, while Apple only comprises of 4%.

Apple hires former Samsung battery executive Soonho Ahn to serve as Global Head of Battery Development

Apple hired Ahn from Samsung SDI, the battery affiliate of the South Korean electronics giant, in December. Bloomberg first reported the hire.

Ahn’s LinkedIn profile suggests he worked on batteries for next-generation devices, although his precise duties at Apple are unclear. The hire could be part of an effort by Apple to reduce its reliance on Samsung for components by putting resources toward in-house talent. Apple began working with LG as a secondary supplier for the OLED screens last year in a move to mitigate its dependence on Samsung, Apple’s biggest smartphone rival, according to Bloomberg.

It appears to be part of a broader move by Apple to produce its own components, as the outlet also reported that the iPhone maker plans to produce its own chips for Mac computers starting sometime around 2020.

See the rest of the story at Business Insider