Apple's new CEO John Ternus plots an overhaul: faster launches, leaner teams, and a more experimental AI push

John Ternus has been Apple CEO for barely a month, and he is already sketching the biggest internal redesign of the company in years. According to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, the longtime hardware chief who succeeded Tim Cook on September 1 wants Apple to launch products faster and more often, strip out layers of management, and become, in his words, more "experimental" as the AI era reshapes the industry.

The report lands as the first visible sign of what a Ternus-led Apple actually looks like — and some of the changes are already underway. Managers inside the hardware organization are being told to compress timelines, a number of senior planning roles have been cut in the last two weeks, and even the company's 2027 budgets are being tightened before they are finalized.

Breaking the spring-fall calendar#

The most striking idea on the table is a break with one of Apple's most entrenched habits: the twin spring and fall launch seasons. Ternus has reportedly told colleagues that Apple should introduce new devices more quickly and spread launches throughout the year, instead of concentrating nearly every major announcement into two narrow windows.

The point is not to change how Apple engineers hardware overnight — those cycles are deeply established — but to stop sitting on finished products until the next keynote slot opens. Apple watchers have seen the pipeline already leaning that way: after the recent foldable iPhone Duo launch, the company is said to be working on camera-equipped AirPods, smart glasses, and a redesigned iPhone for the device's 20th anniversary, plus refreshes of the HomePod mini, iPad mini, and Apple TV.

The unspoken bet is that the AI era rewards speed and experimentation more than it rewards choreography. Gurman reports that Ternus wants Apple to "broaden its range of devices and create a leaner organization with a greater focus on engineering" — a phrase that reads like a direct answer to the criticism that Apple has been slow and reactive on AI.

Fewer managers, more engineers#

The other half of the plan is organizational. Ternus reportedly wants to eliminate some middle-management positions so the engineers building Apple's products report more directly to senior executives — fewer layers, faster decisions, and a shorter path from lab bench to leadership review.

This is already happening. In the past two weeks, Apple has dismissed a number of engineering program managers — the coordinators who run schedules and cross-team work — including roughly half a dozen directors, among the company's most senior employee levels. Affected employees were given several weeks to find other roles inside Apple, with layoffs expected later this year for those who cannot.

Behind the cuts is a philosophy Ternus has reportedly held for years: that Apple should hire fewer people, ask more of its existing engineers, and reduce organizational bloat. During an internal presentation he is said to have shown a slide charting the company's annual headcount growth and argued that Apple should be accomplishing more without adding to it at the same pace. Early planning meetings for 2027 have reportedly seen reduced budget increases, flat staffing levels, and smaller marketing budgets.

The AI support question#

Perhaps the most AI-specific detail in Gurman's report is what did not happen. Apple reportedly considered cutting around 5,000 AppleCare support jobs this summer and replacing some of their work with AI-powered agents — then shelved the plan indefinitely. The company may revisit the idea later, but the hold suggests Apple is cautious about swapping humans for agents in the one part of its business where customer trust is on the line.

That caution sits next to steady experimentation: Apple has already begun using a generative AI assistant for AppleCare calls in the US and Canada, helping with troubleshooting and handing calls over to human advisers when needed. The pattern is familiar across big tech right now — AI first as a copilot, with full replacement discussed in rooms full of lawyers and paused in rooms full of customers.

A product person in charge#

The overhaul fits Ternus's biography. He joined Apple's product design team in 2001, ran hardware engineering from 2013, joined the executive team in 2021, and oversaw the iPhone, Mac, Apple Watch, the Apple silicon transition — and eventually the design organization itself. His elevation marked a shift from Tim Cook's operations-first leadership to a product person's leadership, and the current push puts engineering back at the center of how the company is run.

One person familiar with the situation told Bloomberg that everything is "a lot more hands-on than it used to be" — and "hectic right now." Gurman cautions that rewiring Apple's long-standing habits will take years, and some ideas will not survive contact with the company's scale. But the direction is unambiguous: fewer layers, faster shipping, and a willingness to experiment that Apple has rarely associated with itself.

What to watch#

Three things to track. First, whether launches actually spread beyond the spring and fall windows — the calendar is where a CEO's intentions meet the company's muscle memory. Second, whether the EPM cuts continue into other organizations, or stay contained to hardware. And third, the AppleCare question: if AI agents keep improving at support work, the shelved 5,000-job plan is the number that tells you exactly how much Apple thinks AI can replace.

Under Tim Cook, Apple perfected the machine that perfected the iPhone. Under John Ternus, the pitch is that the machine itself needs rebuilding — because the era where a predictable annual keynote was enough ended some time ago.