Наталя Хандусенко AI Eng 16 April 2026, 13:53

Apple sends Siri developers to boot camp to learn how to program with AI

A group of Apple engineers working on Siri will be sent on a "multi-week bootcamp to learn how to program with AI."

Apple is sending a group of "fewer than 200" engineers (out of the hundreds currently working on Siri) on a multi-week intensive to hone their AI programming skills, 9to5Mac reports .

This move may indicate that the company sees a need to "upgrade" the skills of part of the Siri team in order to effectively utilize the rapid changes in the programming field.

AI coding tools have already become extremely popular in some departments at Apple, particularly in the software development department, leading some teams to allocate significant budgets to Claude Code.

After the training, “about 60 people will remain on the core Siri development team.” In addition, “another 60 employees will work in the Siri performance evaluation group, including analyzing the processing of user commands and the service’s compliance with Apple’s security standards.”

The timing of these events is certainly notable, given the proximity of the WWDC26 conference, scheduled for June 8. Apple is expected to finally announce the long-awaited updated version of Siri based on artificial intelligence, which the company confirmed last year will work on Google Gemini models .

This move was the result of several miscalculations in Apple's AI strategy, which, in turn, led to a large-scale reorganization of the company's AI-related divisions and initiatives, including Apple Intelligence and Siri.

Just this week, Apple's former head of AI, John Giannandrea, finally left the company after stepping down in early December. As part of the same shakeup, Apple brought in Amar Subrahmanya, who spent nearly two decades at Google and briefly at Microsoft, to take over as vice president of AI under Craig Federighi.

The move follows Apple's decision to put the Siri team under the leadership of Mike Rockwell, who was considered the strongest candidate at the time, given his track record of successfully managing technically complex projects like Apple Vision Pro. Rockwell now also reports to Federighi.

As for the Siri AI bootcamp, it's still unclear what form it will take, including whether Apple will conduct it on its own or collaborate with external partners or cutting-edge AI labs.