Early next year, Apple is set to launch its new AI-infused Siri as part of iOS 26.4 – after more than a year of delay. However, despite all the extra time the company has needed to rethink its approach, some Apple engineers testing the software reportedly have concerns as things stand.
It’s worth noting that we’re still about 6 months away from the public release of the software. Things could easily improve, and ideally they would.
In today’s Power On newsletterMark Gurman of Bloomberg reported the following:
I firmly believe there will soon be more senior members of the company’s AI ranks leaving soon, especially if the new Siri arriving in the spring falls flat. People testing iOS 26.4 – the version of the operating system expected to include the new Siri – are already worried about the voice assistant’s performance.
Based on this first internal release, things don’t look too promising.
Apple’s AI woes
It’s no secret that Apple hasn’t had a good time in the AI race. After much external pressure, Apple finally leaned into the AI bubble at WWDC24, where the company announced Apple Intelligence, a suite of AI-powered features running locally on your Apple devices.
The majority of the company’s announcements, like Clean Up in Photos, Genmoji, and ChatGPT in Siri, were released throughout the iOS 18 release cycle.
However, one major thing didn’t debut during the iOS 18 release cycle: the all-new Siri. Apple announced three key upgrades to Siri: personal context, on-screen sensing, and the ability to take action in apps. Essentially, if everything went Apple’s way, Siri would have been a true full-featured digital assistant, one that knew you and could act on your behalf.
But it didn’t come to fruition. People were expecting this all-new Siri to launch by spring, running iOS 18.4 or iOS 18.5. Then it never shipped in beta. Apple later announced that the feature would be delayed for about a year because it did not meet the company’s quality standards.
In an interview after WWDC25, software chief Craig Federighi said they needed time to revamp Siri and that it should be on track to launch in 2026.
iOS 26.4 Siri
Apparently, Apple has two teams working on different approaches to an all-new Siri. One would be powered by on-device models and the other would be powered by Google Gemini running on Private Cloud Compute. It was initially called a “bake”.
We’re not sure which model powers this early version of iOS 26.4 Siri, but if I had to guess, it’s probably using Apple’s device models. Apple hasn’t exactly had the best time attracting AI talent.
I’m sure Apple’s main goal isn’t to simply announce that they failed to develop their own AI-infused Siri, and instead have to rely on Gemini. However, based on early concerns, it is plausible that this will end up being the case.
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