美股研究社·2025-07-31 12:40Core Viewpoint - Apple is facing significant challenges in its AI research efforts, highlighted by the recent departure of key personnel to Meta, which raises concerns about the future of its AI strategy and team morale [3][9][10]. Group 1: Personnel Changes - Bowen Zhang, a key multimodal AI researcher at Apple, recently left the company to join Meta's newly established superintelligence team, marking the fourth AI researcher to depart within a month [3][6]. - Meta has successfully recruited Ruoming Pang, the head of Apple's AFM team, offering a compensation package exceeding $200 million, along with two other researchers from the same team [6][10]. - The AFM team, crucial for Apple's AI strategy, is experiencing turmoil due to these departures, with remaining members expressing uncertainty about the team's future direction [9][11]. Group 2: Impact on Stock and Morale - Following the news of these departures, Apple's stock price fell by 1.5% to $210.82, and has seen a cumulative decline of 15% this year [7]. - The morale within the AFM team is reportedly low, with some engineers actively seeking job opportunities elsewhere, exacerbated by the uncertainty surrounding the team's future and potential shifts in AI strategy [9][11]. Group 3: AI Strategy and Development - Apple is contemplating a shift from its self-developed AFM models to third-party models like OpenAI's ChatGPT or Anthropic's Claude for its new Siri voice assistant, which has caused unrest within the AFM team [11][12]. - Despite ongoing development of a new Siri version based on the AFM model, the consideration of external solutions has led to concerns about the team's significance in Apple's AI strategy [12][13]. - Apple's AI capabilities are currently limited by its focus on user privacy and local processing, which restricts the potential for AI advancements compared to competitors that utilize cloud-based systems with significantly larger parameter counts [13].