Meta Platforms Inc. has recruited two prominent artificial intelligence researchers from Apple, shortly after bringing on their former supervisor from the company. According to sources familiar with the matter, Mark Lee and Tom Gunter have joined Meta’s Superintelligence Labs team. Lee recently left Apple and has already begun working at Meta, while Gunter is expected to start soon. These hires have not been formally announced, and the individuals requested anonymity.

This development is part of a larger trend in the tech industry, where companies are fiercely competing for top AI talent. Meta — which owns Facebook and Instagram — has been particularly aggressive in this pursuit. CEO Mark Zuckerberg has made AI Meta’s core focus, investing heavily in talent and infrastructure to stay competitive with companies like OpenAI and Google.

Gunter resigned from Apple last month, as previously reported by Bloomberg, and both he and Lee had worked under Ruoming Pang, Apple’s head of large language models, whom Meta also hired earlier this month. To attract Pang, Meta reportedly offered a compensation package exceeding $200 million over multiple years. Lee is said to have been Pang’s first hire at Apple, and Gunter, who held the title of distinguished engineer, was one of the most senior members of the team. After leaving Apple, Gunter briefly worked at another AI firm before deciding to join Meta. While Meta declined to comment on the hires, Apple also did not respond to requests for comment.

These new additions highlight the growing instability within Apple’s Foundation Models team (AFM), which is responsible for generative AI technologies. Apple’s senior AI leaders are reportedly considering the use of external AI models — such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT or Anthropic’s Claude — to power features like Siri and Apple Intelligence, raising questions about the future direction of the AFM team. The team reports to AI research leader Daphne Luong, under Senior VP John Giannandrea. Strategy discussions are ongoing with software executives Mike Rockwell and Craig Federighi, who now oversee Siri. Apple is exploring both in-house and third-party models to develop an upgraded voice assistant, expected to launch next spring.

Meta has used this uncertainty to its advantage, luring Apple engineers with significantly higher compensation. In response, Apple has begun offering raises to members of the 100-person AFM team to retain them — though the increases reportedly don’t match Meta’s offers. Gunter is now among several high-profile AI hires at Meta receiving multiyear deals worth over $100 million. Earlier this week, Zuckerberg announced on Threads that Meta plans to invest "hundreds of billions of dollars" in computing resources to develop superintelligence — AI that surpasses human capabilities. Some top AI staff are now seated near Zuckerberg at Meta’s Menlo Park headquarters, promoting direct collaboration. “I’m focused on building the most elite and talent-dense team in the industry,” Zuckerberg shared on Threads.