Apple merges teams and threatens to fire more than 100 people – 01/14/2024 – Tech

Apple is closing a group that worked with artificial intelligence to improve the Siri voice assistant and had 121 people in San Diego (USA). The company will eliminate the Data Operations Annotations team in the city and will merge operations with the group in Austin, also in the USA.

The company has told employees they have until the end of February to decide whether to accept the transfer to Austin, according to people familiar with the matter interviewed by Bloomberg. Anyone who does not accept the proposal will be fired by April 26th.

The group, which also has offices in China, India, Ireland and Spain, is responsible for improving Siri by listening to queries to the voice service and determining whether it heard and handled the questions accurately. The announcement of the San Diego group’s closure was made by Christine DeFilippo, a top assistant to Apple’s AI chief John Giannandrea, the sources said.

An Apple spokeswoman confirmed the relocation decision, saying the company is bringing together its “U.S. Data Operations Annotations teams” at our Austin campus, where the majority of the team is already based. ” She added that “all currently employed employees will have the opportunity to continue in their role with Apple in Austin.”

The company also said it is “deeply committed to San Diego,” where it has “significantly grown,” and that it continues to hire as Apple expands its engineering teams. In other countries where the affected team operates, Apple has all employees in a single office.

For the San Diego team, the change came as a surprise. The AI ​​team had been working in an office leased from Apple, according to the people. But the company had recently informed employees that they would be relocated to a new Apple campus in the area at the end of January. Earlier this month, Apple distributed packing boxes to employees to prepare for a move within the city.

Instead, they will now have to move to Texas, more than 2,000 miles from San Diego. People familiar with the matter told Bloomberg that the majority of affected workers have indicated they are unwilling to move to Austin. Apple has told employees they can apply for other jobs, but some don’t think they will be eligible for many roles because they don’t have an engineering background, the people said.

San Diego employees focused on using Siri in Hebrew, English, various dialects of Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, and French.

The change has the potential to result in the departure of several dozen workers from the company. Apple, which had 161,000 employees in September, has managed to avoid layoffs for the most part since the pandemic — unlike most of its technology peers. However, it cut some corporate retail jobs last April, as well as recruiters.

Employees who are willing to move to Austin by the end of June will be able to keep their positions, Apple said. The company is offering a $7,000 relocation allowance. Those who choose to leave Apple will have their positions eliminated and will receive four weeks of severance pay — plus an additional week for each year worked. They will also receive six months of health insurance.

The team has a notable history within Apple. Years ago, the group was primarily made up of contractors who listened to Siri queries to ensure their accuracy. This practice raised privacy concerns and was made optional for customers in 2019. Contractors were eventually fired and replaced by full-time employees.

A small number of employees in the group began helping Apple with a transition to AI products based on large language models, or LLMs. These employees are now reviewing potential Siri queries and choosing from a few responses. Then they need to explain their decision. Apple plans to announce its LLM plans in June, Bloomberg News reported.