Mark Gurman and Dave Bennett have an interesting feature on Bloomberg about Apple’s AI matches. It is primarily a summary of the last several months of reporting on how Apple fell afterwards in AI, which is why it did not deliver its iOS 18 promises and how it shakes the organization to get back on track.
But there are a few new or updated bits of information in there, even for those who have been aware of this drama. The report paints the image of a company that dramatically reviews Siri, which will take time. In the meantime, the company plans to offer users a number of options in AI tools.
We have previously reported, Apple is working on a huge SIRI audit. The current version of Siri is a “hybrid” model of kind, with different models to handle simple iPhone commands and more sophisticated AI queries. Apple now has AI-centered offices in Zurich, working on a new “All LLM” (large language model) version of Siri that will handle everything with a sophisticated engine. It is said that this Siri is conversation and much better at understanding information and taking actions.
The company has previously been reluctant to even pursue Siri as an alternative to today’s chatbots like Chatgpt or Gemini, but that thinking has changed and it is fighting ahead. The work seems to be going well, with Gurman and Bennett, who report that “the chatbot that the company has tested internally has made significant progress over the past six months, to the point that some leaders see it as on a par with recent versions of chatgpt.”
However, it is still far from release. It will not be ready to show up on WWDC next month and will not be part of iOS 19. In fact, the report, Siri, will take a rear seat on WWDC in favor of other AI improvements such as battery management and a health coach. It will be disappointing for Apple fans who have taken Siri -Fiaskos to a meme, and at least looking for Apple to patch the current version into something less embarrassing.
While we wait for “LLM SIRI”, Apple plans to offer alternatives. In most of the world, requests that Siri cannot handle can be sent to chat for a response, and it is also used in the visual intelligence function. Bloomberg says once again that Apple will add Google’s Gemini as an option beyond Chatgpt in iOS 19, and what’s more, the company is in “early conversations” with confusion to add it as another chatgpt alternative to Siri, and as a search provider in safari.
Apple seems to know how bad Siris reputation at least has become. According to the report, the company will work to separate Siri from the overall Apple Intelligence brand in its marketing because the SIRI brand does not help. Apple will also close the gap between when it announces new features and when they are available, to avoid the embarrassing slip-up in the last year when it promised Siri features last June that still has not realized.
Apple will start WWDC with a keynote speaker on June 9 to show the Apple Intelligence features coming in the next year.