When news of the reshuffle at Google came in, earlier this month, it left a break in the flow of communication making information around the news story uncertain. Of course, the attempt was in order to make AI a more integral part of Google’s other products and that’s why Jeff Dean, one of the earliest employees of the conglomerate took the position of Google’s future with AI. However, the position of John Giannandrea, in this case, was left unsaid.

Mr Giannandrea was in-charge of Google’s AI department and has been working with Google since 2010, when it had purchased Metaweb. He has been the key element in Google’s rapid progress in the field of Artificial Intelligence and Deep Learning and has led to the most significant steps in its research on the domain. Therefore, it was a bit confusing when nothing of his position was said in all the reports published on this major move, until the very next day, when Apple’s hiring of Giannandrea came to the surface.

Apple has hired Mr Giannandrea in hopes of improving its progress rate in the field of Artificial Intelligence. It is noteworthy, that despite being the trend-setter in voice-based digital assistance, with Siri, Apple was lagging behind its counterparts like Alexa, Cortana and Google Assistant. The major reason behind this lagging behind is often accounted to one of the key pillars on which Apple stands, data privacy.

The promises of complete data privacy and security have always earned Apple much appreciation from the realm of digital information rights. However, this is the very same thing that has kept it from growing to its full potential in the sphere of AI. The company at present has access only to the publicly available datasets of its users, and this makes it a bit tricky for it to get ahead of its rivals like Google that has data of millions of users from around the world.

Addressing the subject, CEO Tim Cook wrote an email to the New York Times stating “Our technology must be infused with the values we all hold dear. John shares our commitment to privacy and our thoughtful approach as we make computers even smarter and more personal.”

Things will, presumably, get more progressive in Apple with Mr Giannandrea in the team. However, it doesn’t entail Google to get any slower in its growth. Jeff Dean is one of the most reputed programmers in the industry, and Google has already paved the way for more advanced in-house researches in the field.

In any case, it matters little which of the two conglomerates will be ahead in the competition in future. Verdict for the users and the industry remains the same; things will evolve with an unprecedented speed in AI and the rivals will have to maintain the pace.

Resources:

https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/3/17195076/google-ai-chief-john-giannandrea-joining-apple-machine-learning-siri

https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/3HYPERLINK “https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/3/17191944/google-ai-head-jeff-dean-reshuffle-john-giannandrea”/17191944/google-ai-head-jeff-dean-reshuffle-john-giannandrea

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/03/business/apple-hires-googles-ai-chief.html