Who Is Ke Yang? Apple's AI Search Head Quits Weeks After Promotion, Joins Meta
Yang's promotion to lead AKI was reported only weeks ago, and his exit now raises questions about continuity for Apple’s Siri modernisation.
Apple's executive leading its AI-driven web search push, Ke Yang, is leaving the company to join Meta, according to multiple media reports. His exit comes only weeks after he was given a promotion to run Apple’s "Answers, Knowledge and Information" (AKI) team, which is building web-connected, ChatGPT-style features for Siri.
AKI is central to a major Siri overhaul planned for March. The new Siri is meant to fetch live web results and use a user’s personal data (with permission) to handle more complex tasks. This effort aims to help Apple compete with OpenAI, Perplexity, and Google’s Gemini in AI search.
Yang's promotion to lead AKI was reported only weeks ago, and his exit now raises questions about continuity for Apple’s Siri modernisation.
Yang recently began reporting directly to John Giannandrea, Apple’s SVP for AI and machine learning, after taking over AKI from Robby Walker. With Yang’s departure, AKI will now report to Benoit Dupin, who manages Apple’s machine-learning cloud infrastructure. Apple and Meta haven’t commented publicly on the matter.
Who Is Ke Yang?
Ke Yang is a software engineering leader with a distinguished 15-year career. From his early contributions to the revolutionary Google Brain team to overhauling advertising systems at Houzz, Yang's career showcases a stellar journey from a core engineer to an influential manager shaping business and product strategy.
According to his LinkedIn career details, Yang was a pivotal figure in the Industry Solutions team at his four-year tenure at Houzz where he was mainly working on industry solutions. He started as an individual contributor but ended up being a manager, just before joining Apple.
Yang's had an 11-year stint at Google, where he was at the forefront of the artificial intelligence evolution. As one of the early members of the Google Brain team, he was instrumental in building the machine learning infrastructure that powers modern AI, contributing to both the early-generation parameter server and the globally recognised TensorFlow platform. His work also extended to making critical improvements to Google's core search quality, with a focus on Asian language understanding and mobile search enhancements.
Ke Yang is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University.
Over roughly the past year, about a dozen members of Apple’s core model team viz Apple Foundation Models, have left, including founder Ruoming Pang, with several going to Meta’s new Superintelligence Labs.
Other recent departures include senior researchers Sam Wiseman (to Reflection AI) and Chong Wang (to Meta). Meta also hired Frank Chu from Apple in August to bolster its search-related AI work.
