Apple has lost roughly a dozen senior artificial-intelligence researchers this year, shrinking its core foundation-models group of about 50-60 engineers, the Financial Times reported. Defectors include Brandon McKinzie and Dian Ang Yap to OpenAI, Ruoming Pang and several colleagues to Meta, and others to Elon Musk’s xAI and Toronto-based Cohere, underscoring the escalating pay war for scarce large-language-model talent. Recruiters quoted in the report describe Apple’s AI staff as “open season,” with Meta dangling signing bonuses of up to US$100 million. The departures have hurt morale inside the iPhone maker and raise questions about its capacity to keep pace with rivals investing aggressively in frontier models. The talent drain coincides with Apple’s push to revive Siri. Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman says the company is testing a version of the voice assistant that can execute tasks inside third-party apps through an enhanced App Intents framework. Early trials involve services such as WhatsApp, YouTube and Uber, but engineers are still working to ensure reliability in sensitive areas like health and banking before an expected rollout in iOS 26.4 next spring. Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook and Software Chief Craig Federighi have told employees that generative AI remains a top strategic priority, yet the latest defections highlight the challenge of retaining high-profile researchers as competitors offer outsized compensation and clearer paths to ship cutting-edge products.