Apple senior vice president of hardware technologies Johny Srouji could be the next senior executive to leave in what is an accelerating exit.

Apple’s heads of artificial intelligence and interface design, its general counsel and its head of government affairs were all confirmed as leaving the company in the past week.

The company’s difficulty in implementing artificial intelligence in its products so far has been catastrophic for a company that previously had led the consumer tech market.

Its action to build its own MacBook chips that combined RAM, CPU and GPU components and low power usage was massively successful and led to Apple snaring more than 10 percent of the global personal computer market.

However, Apple Intelligence has turned into a disaster with its most important reforms to address the exploding market in artificial intelligence now delayed until next year.

Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman is now tipping that one of the company’s most respective executives will be next – Johny Srouji, senior vice president of hardware technologies.

Srouji, who was responsible for Apple’s runaway chip success, has told CEO Tim Cook that he is seriously considering leaving shortly, according to Gurman. He has apparently told colleagues that he intends joining another company.

All of this presents a major challenge to CEO Tim Cook who himself has been the subject of rumours of leaving.

The Financial Times says senior Apple executives have indicated that the Apple board and senior executives have intensified preparation for Cook to leave as early as 2026 after more than 14 years.

It says Apple’s current senior vice-president of hardware engineering, John Ternus, is widely seen as Cook’s replacement.

Senior executives say Cook’s departure is in no way related to the company’s performance in what has been a staggeringly successful year for the iPhone. Cook turns 65 this month.