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.