In a big addition to its artificial intelligence efforts, Apple Inc. today said that it has hired John Giannandrea, Google LLC’s former head of search and AI.

News of the hire comes just a day after Google said Giannandrea (pictured) was “stepping down” from his role at the company, with his duties being taken over by two executives. However, reports said he was looking at another role inside Google. Not anymore, it seems.

Giannandrea is a machine learning expert who, among other things, helped Google to build its Knowledge Graph, which serves as the main source of verified knowledge for products such as Google Search and Google Assistant.

He departs a company that’s widely considered to be among the leaders in AI research for one that’s perceived to have struggled to get to grips with the same technology. Apple has been noticeably quiet about its developments on the AI front, despite once being seen as an early mover in the space with the creation of its voice-based digital assistant Siri.

Since then, however, Apple’s rivals, including Google and also Amazon Web Services Inc. and Microsoft Corp., have made significant strides in subsets of AI such as computer vision, deep learning and natural language processing. Those companies employ hundreds of AI researchers and routinely post updates on their progress in these fields.

In contrast, Apple appears to have been unable to keep up. For example, there’s a widespread perception that Siri lags far behind Google’s Assistant and Amazon’s Alexa, one analyst said.

“Apple led everyone with Siri but appears to have fallen behind since then to Amazon and Google,” said Patrick Moorhead, principal analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy.

Giannandrea, who will report directly to Apple Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook as the company’s head of machine learning and AI strategy, could help the Cupertino-based firm attract more talent in these areas. A larger recruitment drive by Apple is already believed to be underway, with reports last month suggesting the company wants to hire as many as 150 experts for its Siri team.

“Apple wants to supercharge their AI efforts by bringing in one of the best,” Moorhead said. “While one person can’t do all of the work, they tend to attract good talent.”

But even if it does “supercharge” its AI efforts, it could be some time before Apple is able to match the capabilities of its rivals. That’s because there’s a lot more to delivering AI systems than just writing the software itself. For example, the infrastructure needed to support these systems must also be put into place.

Unfortunately for Apple, this is another area in which it lags behind its rivals, said a second analyst.

“Apple needs a cloud infrastructure to execute any meaningful AI or machine learning strategy,” said Holger Mueller, principal analyst and vice president of Constellation Research Inc. “Apple can make that happen, but it will need a few more things to fall in place before we see any reasonable, competitive AI offerings.”

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