Nobody likes Siri.
Apple launched its voice assistant years ago, and yet, it's miserable to use, especially compared to Amazon's Alexa and Google Assistant, both of which are extremely smart, well integrated with third-party services, and available on a range of devices. Siri, on the other hand, is limited to Apple's devices, and there's a tonne of criticism about its poor performance. It's almost laughable at this point.
But it looks like Apple has a plan to change all that. It recently started hiring for its Siri division, according to data analysts at Thinknum. Siri-related hiring has been ramped to the point where it's at an “all-time high" - with 161 open job listings currently available. That's a spike of 24 per cent in the last month. It appears as though Apple went on a hiring spree, or tried to, starting in February.
Mind you, that's shortly after the HomePod released and the first reviews panned the "smart" speaker’s ability to process spoken requests. So, Apple is now in the process of hiring new engineers and managers, with more than two dozen new Siri jobs posted in the last two days. As Thinknum pointed out, “It’s clear from [the] hiring data trail that Apple knows where it needs to improve.”
Apple’s job postings include various AI engineers, and they're mostly located at the company’s Apple Park campus.