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)

AP

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.

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." 

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 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. 

Apple is said to have cut 200 employees from its Project Titan team as part of a restructuring resulting from new leadership under former Tesla executive Doug Field, CNBC reported last month. In a statement to CNBC, Apple provided the following comment regarding the layoffs:

"We have an incredibly talented team working on autonomous systems and associated technologies at Apple. As the team focuses their work on several key areas for 2019, some groups are being moved to projects in other parts of the company, where they will support machine learning and other initiatives, across all of Apple . . We continue to believe there is a huge opportunity with autonomous systems, that Apple has unique capabilities to contribute, and that this is the most ambitious machine learning project ever."

Apple hasn't said much publicly about its plans regarding autonomous driving, but in 2015 Apple's Chief Operating Officer Jeff Williams referred to the car as "the ultimate mobile device" when speaking at Recode's Code Conference. 

Earlier this month, Apple announced that 30-year company veteran Deirdre O’Brien would succeed Angela Ahrendts as the company’s retail chief. Before taking on the responsibility of overseeing Apple’s 70,000 retail employees in more than 500 stores across the world, O’Brien led Apple's human resources division. O’Brien will be tasked with completing the store remodelings that Ahrendts started as well as finding new ways to showcase Apple’s services in stores, according to The Wall Street Journal. One such project could involve installing televisions in stores to promote the company’s original shows, the report says.

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