Apple Inc. is reportedly cutting more than 200 positions across key departments as the tech giant redirects its focus toward artificial intelligence and future hardware.

 

The job cuts are said to affect the company’s Siri digital assistant, software engineering, and Vision Pro teams, with about 100 of the cuts coming from the Vision Pro department and roughly 100 from the Siri voice assistant team and the Intelligent Systems Experience group, which handles the company’s AI driven software capabilities.

 

Apple said in a statement through a spokesperson that the layoffs are aimed at evolving its business operations.

 

“While we will create new roles as part of this change, it will also impact a limited number of existing roles. We are grateful to these team members for their contributions, and we are committed to supporting them throughout their transition, including opportunities to apply for other roles at Apple.”

 

Despite the reduction in roles in the Vision Pro hardware department, Apple has assured employees that projects involving the Vision Pro hardware line and visionOS operating system will remain active. However, priorities have shifted toward developing smart glasses that do not require complex 3D gaming or immersive media capabilities and are less expensive to build.

 

The layoffs come at a time when Apple is rebuilding Siri, its voice powered virtual assistant, into a more conversational and context aware version known as Siri AI.

 

The newer model, which is being built in partnership with Google Gemini, will be able to handle personal data, on screen awareness, multi step tasks, and web knowledge, with a dedicated Siri app expected to be rolled out in beta later this year.

 

Like Apple, several other tech giants, including Google, Microsoft, and Amazon, have strategically pivoted toward AI or integrated the technology into their infrastructure, as they compete for a leading position in the AI race.