Meta Poaches Another Apple Employee, This Time Its Lead AI Researchers for Robotics

Meta has nabbed yet another former Apple employee. Recently, the company poached Apple’s lead artificial intelligence researcher for robotics, Jian Zhang, after the researcher left the company.

Zhang has now joined Meta Robotics Studio, according to a recent Bloomberg report. The company confirmed that Zhang is a part of an exodus that is hitting Apple’s AI talent throughout the year.

All employees were a part of an Apple Foundation Models team. Over the past few weeks, the team has apparently lost 10 employees. This includes its chief as well as John Peebles, Nan Du and Zhao Meng, according to the report. Apple formed the team to help in the creation of Apple Intelligence and new AI innovations.

It’s claimed that OpenAI has hired Peebles and Du. Meng, on the other hand, is said to now be working for Anthropic PBC. It’s also been reported that Ruoming Pang has left to work for Meta. Pang ran Apple’s models team but was scooped up for a multiyear $200 million package. Meta has also hired former Apple AI engineers Tom Gunter, Mark Lee, Bowen Zhang and Yun Zhu.

Apple has been facing some tumultuous issues regarding its AI ventures. Apple Intelligence features have been struck by delays since first debuting last year. Following Bloomberg‘s report going public, Apple’s stock dipped 1.5% to $228.77 on Tuesday afternoon.

Zhang was formerly Apple’s robotics researcher and left a small team to work on automation technology and the use of AI. On top of Zhang, the team was also hit with the departure of Mario Srouji, who left in April to lead AI products at Archer Aviations Inc.

Elsewhere, Frank Chu, who previously led Apple AI teams, joined Meta Superintelligence Labs. During his tenure with Apple, Chu focused on the development of cloud infrastructure, training and AI search.