In early 2025, Apple executives held an emergency secret meeting to address a growing internal crisis regarding the company’s artificial intelligence strategy, as initial features of the Apple Intelligence system had not received the expected reception and Siri faced critical delays. The meeting, called by former Chief Operating Officer Jeff Williams, highlighted structural obstacles hindering Apple’s AI efforts. CEO Tim Cook had lost confidence in AI division head John Giannandrea, leading to his formal departure. Mike Rockwell, the mastermind behind the Vision Pro headset, stepped up to fix Siri. According to journalist Mark Gurman, former hardware chief Dan Riccio had warned about a decade ago that AI could pose an existential threat to Apple devices. Rockwell was tasked with creating a roadmap to rebuild Siri, but aspired to a broader leadership role reporting directly to Tim Cook. Craig Federighi insisted on keeping AI under his engineering umbrella, so Rockwell agreed to lead the Siri reboot under Federighi’s supervision, followed by recruiting former Google and Microsoft executive Amar Subramanya to oversee AI models. The crisis led Tim Cook to intervene deeply and personally in Apple’s AI roadmap. Under pressure, Rockwell, Federighi, and Eddy Cue struck a historic agreement with Google to use advanced technology.