Apple has cut more than 200 jobs across its Vision Pro, Siri and broader software teams, marking a sharp retreat from the ambitions it once had for its $3,499 mixed-reality headset. The company is shifting resources toward artificial intelligence and smart glasses instead, with roughly 100 of the cuts landing in the Vision Pro group and another 100 or so hitting Siri and related software teams.
According to the San Francisco Chronicle, Apple has largely shut down its Vision Pro gaming team and plans to create fewer immersive videos in-house, opting instead to encourage outside companies to develop content for the headset. The reductions, first reported by Bloomberg, restructured Apple's Vision Pro, Siri and software teams, though the company says it will continue supporting Vision Pro and its visionOS operating system. An Apple spokesperson said the company will create new roles while impacting a limited number of existing ones, and Apple has offered affected employees the chance to apply for other positions internally, committing to support them through the transition.
A Costly Bet on Immersive Video Comes Due
The retreat from in-house immersive content has a clear financial logic behind it. A single episode of Apple Immersive Video, the 180-degree 8K 3D format Apple once marketed as a signature reason to buy the headset, can cost several million dollars to produce, according to MacRumors, citing Bloomberg reporting. That kind of spending became difficult to justify against a shrinking pool of active Vision Pro users.
The timing creates an awkward wrinkle. Apple announced a four-game live immersive baseball slate with Major League Baseball just eleven days before the layoffs were disclosed, and VR.org notes the cuts land just a week before Apple's first live 8K 180-degree 3D MLB broadcast, a Friday Night Baseball stream featuring the Red Sox and Yankees set for August 28.
Siri Engineers Reassigned as Apple Chases Its LLM Overhaul
On the software side, the roughly 100 cuts within Siri specifically targeted engineers working on the assistant's legacy voice architecture, according to Engadget. Apple is reallocating that headcount toward its new large language model AI engine, which launched alongside iOS 27 — a transition in skills rather than a full abandonment of the assistant.
The layoffs also swept through Apple's Intelligent Systems Experience group, an internal unit that designs how AI features interface across iOS, iPadOS and macOS, per the Times of India. That points to a broader software realignment beyond just Siri, touching the teams responsible for how artificial intelligence shows up across Apple's core operating systems.
Vision Pro Sales Never Took Off
The scale of the pullback tracks with how poorly Vision Pro has sold since its 2024 launch. Apple shipped roughly 390,000 units during that debut year, but shipments fell to an estimated 45,000 during the 2025 holiday quarter, according to IDC data cited by Hypebeast. Apple also slashed its digital marketing spend for the headset by more than 95% across the U.S. and U.K. in 2025 compared with the 2024 rollout, per the same outlet, and the device remains officially available in only 13 countries.
The broader wearables market has moved in a different direction. Smart glasses grew to make up roughly 50% of all 14.5 million global XR wearable shipments in 2025, while standalone VR and mixed-reality headsets saw year-over-year sales contractions, according to Counterpoint Research and IDC data reported by Treeview Studio. Meta's Ray-Ban smart glasses drove much of that growth, underscoring why Apple is now chasing lighter, AI-enabled hardware instead of doubling down on heavy headsets.
A Pattern of Leadership Turnover and Targeted Cuts
This is not Apple's first major Bay Area workforce reduction in recent years. In Apple's Santa Clara job cuts from April 2024, the company laid off 614 employees after canceling its electric autonomous vehicle initiative, Project Titan, according to California WARN Act records. Apple has historically favored these kinds of targeted restructurings over broad company-wide layoffs when a project gets shelved.
The Vision Pro division has also seen executive turnover. Dan Riccio, the longtime engineering executive who led the Vision Products Group and oversaw the headset's hardware development, retired from Apple in October 2024 after 26 years at the company, according to the Times of India. Oversight passed to Hardware Chief John Ternus and operational lead Mike Rockwell.
Despite weak consumer traction, Vision Pro has found niche footholds outside the living room. UC San Diego Health became the first U.S. medical institution to pilot the headset inside surgical operating rooms in September 2024, using it to display medical imaging and vital signs during procedure trials, as Hoodline reported at the time. Apple's decision to keep visionOS alive, even as it leans on outside developers for content, suggests it's betting those specialized use cases — not mainstream gaming or entertainment — may be where the headset finds its footing.
