Apple has reportedly lost its senior director of artifical intelligence Tom White to Meta.
Meta has reportedly recruited Tom White, Apple’s former senior director of artificial intelligence (AI) architecture.
According to Bloomberg, the AI chief will oversee foundational AI models and generative systems, reflecting Meta’s bid to boost its machine learning division.
White led Apple’s internal machine-learning and language-model teams, playing a central role in the development of the tech giant’s next-generation on-device intelligence.
In a statement, a Meta representative said: “Tom White’s leadership and experience will be instrumental as we scale our foundational models to power future products and services.”
His departure is a setback for Apple, which has been quietly expanding its AI research and integration within macOS and iOS.
Sources indicate a portion of Apple’s project roadmap – including future Siri enhancements and on-device summarisation features – may now require retooling.
At Meta, White is joining a growing list of AI experts – including ex-Apple Deep Learning VP Ian Goodfellow and Anthropic alum Jack Clark – focused on the company’s ambitions in generative AI, multimodal systems, and large language model (LLM) infrastructure.
White is expected to join Meta later this month, while both Meta and Apple appear to be on diverging AI paths.
Meta is seemingly expanding aggressively into large models and generative tech, and Apple doubling down on device-based intelligence with Apple Intelligence.
This hire may accelerate Meta’s lead in foundational AI capabilities.
The shift underscores Meta’s ambition to compete head-to-head with leaders like OpenAI and Google, while Apple focuses on internal, user-facing features.
With White’s expertise in architectures and scaling, Meta aims to accelerate innovation across its services, including AI assistants, content generation tools, and metaverse infrastructure.
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