Apple is conducting one of the largest organizational adjustments in its recent history. According to a Bloomberg report, the company has eliminated more than 200 positions across three distinct fronts: the Vision Pro group, the Siri team, and the intelligent software department. The move, affecting approximately 100 collaborators from each block, signals a deep strategic realignment — the company is moving away from high-risk investments in immersive reality to concentrate resources on simpler augmented reality glasses and on repositioning Siri as an artificial intelligence platform.
The impact on Vision Pro is especially revealing. Approximately 100 employees from the Vision Products Group were laid off, with Apple "essentially shutting down" the team focused on gaming for the headset. The company is also reducing the group responsible for producing immersive videos for the Vision Pro. According to Bloomberg, each immersive video produced by Apple can cost millions of dollars to film — which includes multiple teams of employees and contractors — and the number of people who actually use these contents is minuscule. The company told employees it will still produce "a smaller number of videos in-house" and will now encourage third-party developers to create immersive content, transferring production risk away from Apple itself.
The numbers tell the complete story. When the Vision Pro was launched in 2024, priced at an unprecedented US$ 3,500 in the United States, the market reacted with cautious enthusiasm. Analysts predicted sales of 400,000 units in the first year — and Apple ended up selling around 250,000. In 2025, the figure dropped to approximately 150,000 units, and estimates for 2026 hover around 100,000. For comparison, the iPad product line as a whole sold more than 40 million units in the same period. The Vision Pro retails at US$ 3,699 — roughly twelve pairs of the Meta glasses with cameras, launched by the competition at US$ 299.
Apple emphasized that the Vision Pro and the visionOS operating system are not being eliminated. Employees were informed that a new model of the headset is under consideration for release as early as the end of 2028. However, the more immediate product is focused on conventional smart glasses, which will not support 3D immersive gaming or immersive video — a clear shift in the company's technological ambition for the next three years.
On the other side of the spectrum, the outcome in the Siri team follows different but equally significant logic. The Siri AI platform, which Apple has been developing as the centerpiece of its artificial intelligence strategy, is being rebuilt on a completely new technical architecture. This change in architecture requires "different necessary expertise" from what the traditional team possessed, leading Apple to eliminate some existing positions, reallocate resources, and create new roles focused on the updated Siri.
The "Intelligent Systems Experience team," responsible for AI-powered capabilities across the Apple ecosystem, was also impacted. The restructuring reflects a broader effort by the company to centralize work on AI-driven capabilities. As more teams bring intelligent functions to Apple's own apps, features, and services, the company is realigning its groups to match priorities and accelerate development.
Apple's financial context helps explain the urgency of these cuts. The company faces a regulatory dispute in Europe over App Store fees, and a potential settlement with the European Commission would require Apple to accept third-party payment systems on iOS — which would significantly reduce the commission it charges developers. In this context, cutting operational costs on underperforming products like the Vision Pro is a cash flow protection measure.
Additionally, Apple had previously announced layoffs of around 60 Vision Pro employees, as reported earlier in the week, indicating that the current adjustment is part of a broader and ongoing process. Today's cuts bring the total to more than 200 eliminated positions.
For affected employees, Apple stated they will be able to apply for other positions within the company. "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 are committed to supporting them during the transition," a company spokesperson said in a statement.
The change is particularly symbolic because it reflects a decisive moment for spatial computing. Apple bet heavily on virtual reality as the future of personal computing, but the market did not follow expectations. While Meta, with Ray-Ban Meta Glasses, built a practical ecosystem of affordable AI glasses, Apple has remained committed to the vision of a bulky, expensive headset — for now.
What remains at stake is whether Apple can rebalance its augmented reality bet without compromising the innovation that originally differentiated it in the market. The transition from smart glasses to a mixed reality headset may take longer than the company imagined, and the next 12 months will be decisive in understanding whether the "glasses first, headset later" strategy is correct — or whether Apple simply underestimated how far European competitors had already progressed in terms of mass adoption.
Sources: 9to5Mac, MacRumors, The Next Web, AppleInsider
✓ Independent sources cross-checked and verified before publishing
