The veteran smartwatches and AirPods are 迎来 their farewell moment. Is Apple's personnel reshuffle actually paving the way for the "AI grand blueprint"?

According to the Zhitong Finance APP, Mark Gurman, an Apple product leaker who has accurately revealed iPhone update details multiple times, stated in his latest post that Stan Ng, the marketing executive responsible for Apple Watch, AirPods, personal health programs, and smart home projects at Apple Inc. (AAPL.US), is set to retire. This marks a leadership change for a series of key product lines under Apple. This significant personnel retirement occurs against the backdrop of continuous restructuring within Apple's AI organization, suggesting that Stan Ng's departure is part of a broader shift where Apple is gradually replacing its traditional hardware marketing system with a new organizational framework centered around Apple Intelligence and the highly anticipated AI Siri.

Gurman's latest post indicates that Stan Ng, who has worked at Apple for 31 years, announced on Thursday that he will be leaving the company. During his tenure, he helped conceive the initial version of the Apple Watch series and oversaw subsequent updates and the development of other well-known accessories.

It is understood that his most notable achievement at Apple was helping to launch the original version of the iPod, and he served as a key marketing executive for that product line. He also participated in the launch videos for several major consumer electronics products, including the iPod touch in 2007.

Gurman revealed that Ng wrote in an internal statement on LinkedIn: "After 31 years at Apple, today is my last day here. It has been a pleasure to work at Apple, and I truly love the work I have done for so long." Ng joined Apple in 1995 as a systems engineer, even before Steve Jobs returned to the company.

The latest stock unit/stock option vesting date for Apple was on Wednesday local time, and many retiring or departing employees tend to leave around this time. Earlier reports indicated that John Giannandrea, who has long been in charge of Apple's AI business, is also expected to announce his departure. Apple did not immediately respond to requests for comments on Ng's departure.

Senior Marketing Executive Stan Ng Leaves Apple After 31 Years, Core Product Lines Experience Personnel Shuffle

Ng's departure further adds to a list of significant figures leaving, spanning from the Jobs era to the current CEO Tim Cook's entire tenure. Last year, Jeff Williams, a senior operations executive from the Jobs era, retired, while former hardware engineering head Dan Riccio left the year before.

Lisa Jackson, who has long been responsible for environmental and government affairs at Apple, retired earlier this year, and the company's long-serving general counsel—who is also the successor to Jackson in government affairs—plans to leave later in 2026. Additionally, Alan Dye, a senior user interface design executive at Apple, has jumped to Facebook's parent company Meta Platforms Inc. at the end of 2025 Ng is the third major executive to leave Apple recently, associated with the company's smartwatch, health, and fitness business. Williams was responsible for these businesses before retiring, while Jay Blahnik, head of Fitness+, left after an investigation and lawsuit related to personal conduct allegations.

Ng's departure is also significant for Apple's entire marketing organization ecosystem, which is led by Senior Vice President Greg Joswiak. Ng reported to Bob Borchers, who is responsible for product marketing under Joswiak. Apple's marketing head is not only responsible for advertising but also deeply involved in and helps lead product development.

Apple typically has separate marketing heads for its iPhone series, software business, enterprise projects, iPad and Mac, and Vision Pro headset series—all reporting to Borchers, while the marketing head related to developer business reports directly to Joswiak. Apple recently appointed its first AI marketing head, a position that also falls under Joswiak's system.

Some of Ng's responsibilities have been taken over by Erik Treski, who was mentioned in last month's AirPods Max update announcement. He is currently responsible for marketing audio and home products.

Veterans exit, new chapters begin! Is Apple restructuring its personnel for a grand AI vision?

With Stan Ng's departure and Apple's recent continuous restructuring of senior management related to AI and marketing, the market has begun to interpret these actions as Apple shifting its AI ecosystem surrounding Apple Intelligence and AI Siri from "R&D topics" to "actual productization and distribution planning." Under Cook's leadership, Apple is paving the organizational path for the "final landing and large-scale commercialization reconstruction of AI in the Apple consumer electronics ecosystem."

Stan Ng was responsible for the Apple Watch, AirPods, Home, and Health—product lines most likely to undertake Apple's next phase of "ambient AI / high-performance AI on the device side" and "personalized version of Siri AI omnipotent super voice assistant." He worked at Apple for 31 years and was a key product marketing veteran from the iPod to the Apple Watch era. In other words, from the recent series of personnel changes at Apple, this is not the departure of the AI technology head, but rather a shift in the marketing and product narrative authority at the consumer electronics entry level; for Apple, this seems more like a reorganization of personnel frameworks and organizational space for the next round of "hardware + AI functionality repackaging," rather than directly weakening AI R&D itself.

This retirement occurs against the backdrop of continuous restructuring within Apple's AI organization. Apple has announced that long-term AI head John Giannandrea will step down to an advisory role and retire in spring 2026, while appointing Amar Subramanya as the new AI Vice President, reporting directly to Craig Federighi; Subsequently, Apple poached Lilian Rincon from Google in March to serve as the first Vice President of AI Product Marketing, reporting directly to Greg Joswiak. Additionally, informed sources revealed that Apple plans to integrate more third-party AI services into Siri beyond its existing collaboration with ChatGPT, indicating that Apple's AI strategy is shifting from a "top-down, single technology-driven" approach to a more pragmatic focus on productization, marketing, and platform restructuring.

Therefore, if we view Ng's eventual departure in light of this series of actions, it appears more like Apple is gradually replacing its traditional hardware marketing system with a new organizational framework centered around Apple Intelligence and AI Siri. However, what the market is truly concerned about now is not the departure of a senior marketing executive, but whether Apple can transform its still-strong hardware distribution capabilities into the long-awaited AI monetization ability that investors expect—this is crucial, as Apple led global smartphone shipments with a 5% year-on-year growth in Q1 2026, despite a significant price increase in smartphones and PCs due to extreme imbalances in supply and demand for storage chips, indicating that its Apple device user base remains intact.

According to the AI Siri timeline previously disclosed by Gurman, as part of its important component that was delayed last year and focused on reintroducing a more personalized version of the Siri AI omnipotent voice assistant, Apple will launch a standalone Siri application in the upcoming iOS 27 operating system, along with an operation button named "Ask Siri."

The upcoming Siri AI voice assistant feature set is likely just a part of Apple's grand vision for Siri AI, rather than a complete delivery of the so-called omnipotent level voice assistant. The Siri AI voice assistant expected to debut at the June WWDC resembles "Apple's technology roadmap + the first batch of important AI features," rather than the final version of the omnipotent Siri AI voice assistant being fully realized.

The new version of Siri, which was announced at the 2024 WWDC, has never been officially launched, and the plan originally scheduled for spring 2025 has been repeatedly delayed. The significant release of the new version of Siri is seen as a key counterattack by Apple under the pressure of continuous updates and iterations from competitors like ChatGPT and Google Gemini.

Integrating large AI models with consumer electronic devices such as PCs and smartphones to create models capable of running inference performance offline on local devices, while also leveraging vast cloud AI computing resources to meet users' deeper personal needs, has become the core content of the "AI planning blueprint" for many consumer electronics technology companies worldwide.

In the vision of Apple fans for the Siri update iteration, supported by cloud and edge AI large models, the positioning of Apple Siri may no longer be a clumsy formal voice assistant. By combining cloud AI computing resources with edge generative artificial intelligence capabilities, Apple iPhone models are expected to achieve a "personal AI assistant" that better meets individual user needs, similar to the "omnipotent AI companion" depicted in the movie "HER." Apple has stated that the updated Siri voice assistant will be able to utilize users' personal information to answer questions and perform actions across various applications