SAN FRANCISCO, March 27 (Reuters) - Apple ( AAPL ) on Friday said it has hired Lilian Rincon, who previously spent nearly a decade at Google overseeing its shopping and assistant products, as the vice president of product marketing for artificial intelligence, reporting to its marketing chief Greg "Joz" Joswiak.

The hire comes as Apple ( AAPL ) is readying an improved version of Siri, its virtual assistant, for release this year, rebuilt with technology from Alphabet's Gemini AI model.