Apple Inc. (AAPL.US) plans to step up efforts to retain AI talent amid report of AI executive Robby Walker leaving next month.

According to reports, Apple Inc. (AAPL.US) artificial intelligence executive Robby Walker plans to leave next month. Walker has been with Apple Inc. since 2013, leading the question, knowledge, and information team within the artificial intelligence and machine learning organization. Previously, Apple Inc. acquired a startup founded by Walker called Cue in 2013, and he joined the company, which had developed personal search and proactive assistance tools. Prior to that, Walker's first startup company, Zenter, founded in 2007, was also acquired by Alphabet Inc. Class C (GOOGL.US). Sources say that Walker has recently been involved in the development of Apple Inc.'s artificial intelligence network search system. If his departure is confirmed, it will further exacerbate the trend of talent loss in Apple Inc.'s artificial intelligence team - several prominent AI researchers have left in the past few months. For example, Jian Zhang, the research director at Siasun Robot&Automation with ten years of experience at Apple Inc., left earlier this month to join Meta Platforms (META.US) in a similar position. Other employees who have left in the past month include John Peebles, Nan Du, and Zhao Meng. In addition, the creator of Apple Inc.'s AI model team, Ruoming Pang, has also left. AI engineers Tom Gunter, Mark Lee, Bowen Zhang, and Yun Zhu have also switched to Meta; while Frank Chu, who previously led the development of Apple Inc.'s AI cloud infrastructure, training, and search team, has joined Meta's Super Intelligence Lab to work on AI infrastructure.