Apple Inc.’s Robby Walker, one of the iPhone maker’s most senior artificial intelligence executives, is leaving the company, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

The report doesn't give an explicit reason for why Walker or the other employees have left the company, but it certainly doesn't paint an entirely positive picture of Apple's AI development from the outside looking in.

As expected, Apple rolled out a bunch of gadget upgrades during its closely watched marketing event on Tuesday. But perhaps the most notable thing about its crisply edited, hour-and-ten-minute propaganda reel was this: Apple went really quiet when it came to artificial intelligence.

Until now, Apple has only released what could be considered baseline AI features for its devices, like AI writing tools, summarization, generative AI images, live translation, visual search, and Genmoji,

Apple's stock is down 5% this year, dogged by concerns about the company's artificial-intelligence efforts. "The elephant in the room and the black over the stock has been the invisible AI strategy," Wedbush analyst Daniel Ives wrote ahead of Tuesday's event.

Apple has officially absorbed the founding team of WhyLabs, the Seattle startup it acquired in a secretive deal. GeekWire first reported about the acquisition earlier this year. Now the founders are working at Apple in various AI-related roles, according to LinkedIn.

Apple's AI division faces a significant setback as Robby Walker, a key executive overseeing Siri and a new AI-powered search system, is reportedly lea

Apple Intelligence was designed to leverage things that generative AI already does well, like text and image generation, to improve upon existing features.