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Meta has poached top Apple design executive Alan Dye, in a blow to the iPhone maker as the social media group steps up its efforts to sell wearable artificial intelligence-powered devices.
Dye, who has led Apple’s user interface design team since 2015, will head up a new design studio at Meta, overseeing design, software and AI integration across its product suite.
His appointment marks a coup for the $1.6tn social media platform. Chief executive Mark Zuckerberg has said wearable devices — which he believes will one day replace smartphones — are vital to his bet on “superintelligence”.
On top of aggressively developing AI models, Meta in September released its first smart glasses with an inbuilt display, which overlays text messages, video calls or responses from its AI assistant on one of the lenses.
Zuckerberg on Wednesday said that the company wanted to “treat intelligence as a new design material”.
“We’re entering a new era where AI glasses and other devices will change how we connect with technology and each other,” he said in a post on Meta’s text app Threads. “The potential is enormous, but what matters most is making these experiences feel natural and truly centred around people.”
Apple confirmed Dye’s departure and said he would be replaced by Stephen Lemay, a user interface designer who has worked for the company for almost three decades.
Dye will join the effort to develop Meta’s consumer devices, including the display glasses launched this year, its current line of Ray-Ban smart glasses and its Quest virtual reality headsets. He will report to chief technology officer Andrew Bosworth, who heads up Meta’s Reality Labs department.
It marks the second high-profile departure from Apple this week after its AI chief John Giannandrea announced he would retire next spring. The iPhone maker has lagged behind rivals on the development and integration of AI into its devices.
Giannandrea will be replaced by former Microsoft and Google DeepMind executive Amar Subramanya. Chief operating officer Jeff Williams also announced his retirement over the summer.
OpenAI has also lured Apple’s designers, with some joining after the ChatGPT maker bought hardware start-up IO run by former Apple star designer Jony Ive.
Dye will be joined at Meta by Billy Sorrentino, who has worked at Apple since 2016 and was responsible for the design of VisionOS, the user interface on the company’s $3,499 headset, the Apple Vision Pro.
Over the summer, Meta also hired Ruoming Pang, who previously led Apple’s AI models team, to the elite AI team called TBD Labs. As part of his hiring blitz, Zuckerberg has offered top AI talent compensation packages worth hundreds of millions of dollars annually.
Tim Cook, Apple’s chief executive, said the company’s new design chief Lemay had played a crucial role in the design of “every major Apple interface” since 1999. “He has always set an extraordinarily high bar for excellence and embodies Apple’s culture of collaboration and creativity.”
Bloomberg first reported the moves. Meta declined to comment.