Apple Cuts Vision Pro Roles to Focus on Smart Glasses Push
Apple is realigning some teams as it shifts its focus to new devices and artificial intelligence (AI), Bloomberg reported Friday (Aug. 21), citing unnamed sources.
Amid this shift, Apple is cutting jobs across its teams responsible for the Siri digital assistant, the Vision Pro headset and the Intelligent Systems Experience organization that is responsible for some AI features on devices. The company is largely shutting down a team focused on gaming for the Vision Pro, according to the report.
In total, about 100 positions are being eliminated from the Vision Pro organization, and another 100 are being cut from the Siri and software teams, the report said.
New positions will be created to support the upcoming AI-infused version of Siri, and new roles will be added to the Intelligence Systems Experience team, per the report.
The report said that Apple told employees that the Vision Pro isn’t going away, but that the company is focusing on launching smart glasses that won’t support immersive video or games.
Apple said in the report that it is realigning some teams to “deliver the best experiences for our users.”
“While we will create new roles as part of this change, it will also impact a limited number of existing roles,” Apple said, per the report.
Apple debuted the long-awaited Siri AI in June, showcasing an AI-powered personal assistant it said can answer questions from the web and surface relevant information from the user’s messages, emails and photos.
It was reported in June that Apple had dropped its plans for a successor to the Vision Pro and would focus instead on smart glasses. That report said that incoming Apple CEO John Ternus had signed off on the decision to drop a Vision Pro successor and that Apple was shifting its resources toward “smart glasses with greater mass-market potential.”
It was reported in February 2024 that early feedback suggested that some users were encountering difficulties with the Vision Pro. Discomfort, headaches and eye strain were among the primary reasons prompting early adopters to return the $3,500 headsets. Aside from discomfort, some users expressed disappointment in the device’s perceived lack of productivity relative to its price tag.
