Apple unveils long-awaited AI Siri after years of delays

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Apple revealed a long-awaited AI overhaul of its voice assistant Siri on Monday, as the iPhone maker emphasised that its commitment to privacy and protecting consumer data would differentiate it from its competitors.

Software engineering chief Craig Federighi said a deal the Silicon Valley giant signed with Google in January to use its foundational models had unlocked a “huge upgrade” for Apple with a new smart assistant capable of effectively handling tasks for users.

A demo showed that the new Siri could respond to queries in a similar manner to OpenAI’s ChatGPT or Anthropic’s Claude while also incorporating personal data on users’ phones, reading what is happening onscreen and interacting with apps.

It will be available in beta next month before launching in the autumn.

Investors were closely watching Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference on Monday for signs the iPhone maker was back on track with its suite of AI tools and features after lagging behind competitors.

“Some appear to be racing forward, seemingly pursuing AI for the sake of AI without clear regard for the people, all of us, that it’s meant to serve,” Federighi said. “We believe that truly helpful AI must be centred around you and your needs . . . with privacy at every step.

“Today, many AI providers talk about privacy, but by default, most of them retain your personal interactions, leaving the onus on you to defend your privacy,” Federighi added. Apple would not use or keep any of the personal data around AI Siri, he reiterated.

Mike Rockwell, the senior executive who was put in charge of Siri last year as the company has hurried to reset its faltering AI strategy, said Apple had delivered a “profoundly more capable assistant”. 

Its capabilities include, for example, pulling up photos and personal contact details, or crafting a dinner menu based on iMessage chats. A dedicated Siri app will save prior conversations and images.

The new “Siri AI” will not be available in the EU or China initially due to regulatory issues. It would launch in English, but new languages would be added quickly, the company said. It would only work on post-2023 iPhones.

In a strategy shift, Apple said on Monday that it would use Nvidia’s leading chips to run its most advanced cloud-based AI model through Google’s servers.

Apple originally planned to run user queries only through its own servers on its own chips, a system it calls “Private Cloud Compute”, to ensure full data security by avoiding third-party providers.

Apple also unveiled an update to its “Liquid Glass” operating system design, which launched last year and drew criticism over its translucent bubble effect that some users said was difficult to read against certain backgrounds. A slider tool will allow users to make the overlay “fully tinted”.

The company said it was rolling out new child safety features on its devices that will allow parents to decide the websites and apps their children can access across devices, control new contacts, and vet images or videos sent from their devices, as well as live FaceTime calls. 

“We’re giving parents powerful, easy-to-use tools to help manage what kids can see, who they can talk to, and when they have access,” Federighi said. 

Apple first launched new generative AI features on the iPhone two years ago with a suite of software updates it termed “Apple Intelligence” which included writing aids, image and emoji generation and a partnership with OpenAI that linked queries through Siri to ChatGPT. There was no mention of OpenAI during the keynote on Monday.

While Apple first revealed a new AI Siri assistant capable of understanding personal context and taking action across apps in 2024, it had to make an embarrassing turnaround after extensively marketing the features.

The planned rollout was delayed after Apple conceded the feature was not ready yet. The reversal resulted in a $250mn class action settlement in May.

Ahead of Monday’s event, Bank of America analyst Wamsi Mohan wrote that while AI Siri would not “settle the AI debate on whether Apple has been lagging due to lack of in-house frontier models”, it was nonetheless an “important marker” for it to show how it was creating an agentic AI platform that marks it out from competitors. 

Apple’s deal with Google in January to use its Gemini models and cloud services to power AI features was widely seen as a concession that the tech giant had not managed to develop its own frontier models after proving slow to invest in generative AI. 

Monday’s event also marked Tim Cook’s last annual developer conference before he steps down as chief executive in September and hands over to John Ternus. Cook will remain at Apple as executive chair of its board. 

Cook emerged briefly for an ovation from the crowd in Cupertino’s Apple Park following a brief tribute from Federighi. Ternus did not feature in Monday’s keynote event.