Apple Cuts Over 200 Jobs From Vision Pro and Siri Teams, Pivots to Smart Glasses

Apple confirmed to Bloomberg on Friday, August 21, that it's cutting more than 200 jobs across the teams behind the Vision Pro headset and the Siri voice assistant. About 100 of those positions come from the Vision Pro organization, and another 100 from Siri and related software engineering groups, according to people familiar with the matter cited by Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman.

The cuts land hard on two specific Vision Pro units. Apple is "largely shutting down" the team that built gaming features for the headset, and it's shrinking the group that produces immersive video content, Bloomberg reported. That's a notable retreat from two of the features Apple used to sell the $3,499 (now $3,699) headset back in 2024.

The cost of immersive video production has been steep. A single episode can cost several million dollars to produce and requires multiple production crews, according to Bloomberg, and the audience willing to strap on a headset to watch it has stayed small. Apple plans to keep making a smaller slate of videos in-house and lean on third-party creators to fill the gap.

Apple gave employees a company line, not an apology. "We are evolving our business to deliver the best experiences for our users," the company said in a statement provided to Bloomberg and confirmed to multiple outlets including The Verge and TechCrunch. Apple added: "While we will create new roles as part of this change, it will also impact a limited number of existing roles. We are grateful to these team members for their contributions, and we are committed to supporting them throughout their transition, including opportunities to apply for other roles at Apple."

Some affected employees can reapply for new positions. Apple did not disclose which roles will be created or how many affected employees will actually land new positions internally.

The Siri side of the reorganization centers on technical architecture. Apple's AI-powered Siri overhaul, unveiled at this year's WWDC and headed for public beta later in 2026, runs on what Bloomberg described as a completely new technical foundation. That requires different skills than the old team had, so Apple is cutting some roles while creating others aimed at the new system. The Intelligent Systems Experience team, which works on AI features across Apple's software, is also affected as the company reorganizes to match its AI priorities.

Apple isn't killing Vision Pro outright. The company told staff the headset and its visionOS software remain live projects, and Bloomberg reported Apple is still weighing a new Vision Pro model for as early as late 2028. But the near-term hardware focus has clearly shifted to smart glasses, which Bloomberg has separately reported Apple plans to unveil at WWDC in 2027 and ship by the end of that year.

The pricing gap explains the strategic shift. Meta's Ray-Ban smart glasses, built with French-Italian eyewear maker EssilorLuxottica, start at $299. Apple's Vision Pro costs roughly twelve times that. Meta's approach has found real consumer traction, while Apple's headset has not put up numbers the company has been willing to share publicly. Apple has never released official Vision Pro sales figures.

Mashable's earlier reporting this month, citing AppleInsider, put the initial round of Vision Pro cuts at around 60 employees and noted the timing lines up with Tim Cook's planned handover of the CEO role to John Ternus. Bloomberg's tally of more than 200 across Vision Pro, Siri, and software teams is the fuller, more recent count and folds in cuts beyond just the headset group. The two reports describe different snapshots in a rolling process, with the earlier 60-person figure representing an initial wave inside the larger 200-plus total.

Apple raised prices on Macs, iPads, and the Vision Pro this summer, citing a memory chip shortage tied to the broader AI hardware boom, according to TechCrunch. The company also rolled out a leasing program for its major hardware lines and is currently suing OpenAI over trade secret theft allegations. None of that is confirmed to be directly connected to this week's layoffs, but it reflects cost pressure on multiple fronts as the company works to catch up in AI.

What happens to the roughly 200 laid-off employees, and how many of Apple's promised "new roles" materialize for them, is not yet public. Apple has not said when the smart glasses will be formally announced beyond the 2027 WWDC target Bloomberg has reported, and the company has given no updated timeline for whether a new Vision Pro headset ships in 2028 or gets shelved entirely.