AINEWS
The cuts largely shut down the headset's gaming team, pare back immersive video, trim Siri, and shrink the group that integrates AI into Apple devices, while a memory chip shortage drives up hardware costs.
Apple is cutting more than 200 jobs across its Vision Pro, Siri, and AI-integration groups, a Bloomberg report republished Thursday by TechCrunch, The Verge, and 9to5Mac confirms. Roughly half the cuts hit the Vision Pro team, including a gaming group that is being "largely shut down" and a reduction in the team producing Vision Pro Immersive Video. The rest fall on Siri and a smaller unit called Intelligent Systems Experience, which focuses on the integration of AI into devices.
The reshuffle is the first on-record cut that pulls resources from the $3,499 headset Apple launched in early 2024 as its "spatial computing" bet, and from its voice assistant, at the same time, while the company publicly frames its future around "newer AI efforts and new devices." It lands in the same quarter that Apple raised Mac and iPad prices and introduced a hardware leasing program, both responses to a memory-chip squeeze driven by the broader AI buildout.
The Vision Pro cuts remove the headset's gaming effort and pare the Immersive Video team, with a smaller amount of in-house production continuing. That tracks with January 2026 reporting on weak Vision Pro adoption and production cuts. Bloomberg reported in May 2026 that a slimmer and lighter successor headset is in development, but the current product line is not where Apple is putting new bodies.
The Siri and Intelligent Systems Experience cuts reshape where Apple's AI work actually ships. The assistant has lagged behind newer conversational AI for years, and Apple has leaned on a more deliberate, privacy-focused architecture to defend that gap. Cutting roles in the team that integrates AI across Apple's hardware, while adding headcount elsewhere, signals that Apple is choosing to ship AI features into its existing product line rather than wait for Siri to catch up. Apple has not said which new devices the freed-up engineers will move to.
Apple's on-the-record characterization is corporate minimization. A spokesperson said the change is meant "to evolve our business to deliver the best experiences for our users" and that "while we will create new roles as part of this change, it will also impact a limited number of existing roles." The "limited number" framing sits awkwardly next to a 200-plus figure distributed across three named teams.
The reshuffle is also defensive. The memory-chip shortage tied to the AI buildout has raised component costs across the industry, and Apple has already passed some of that through to Mac and iPad prices this summer. Cutting headcount on a slow-mover like Vision Pro and a non-revenue-generating assistant like Siri frees up engineering capacity for the AI features and unannounced devices Apple needs to compete with. The bet is that an integrated AI layer across iPhone, iPad, and Mac is worth more, right now, than the third year of the Vision Pro roadmap.
The next test is where the freed-up engineers land, and whether the May 2026 successor headset survives in its reported form under next year's cost pressure.