Apple announced a major overhaul to Siri at its Worldwide Developers Conference, introducing a fundamentally redesigned voice assistant powered by generative AI technology. The new Siri, set for broad release in the fall, represents a significant departure from the question-and-answer tool users have known for years, instead resembling conversational AI chatbots like ChatGPT and Google Gemini.
Mike Rockwell, Apple's vice-president of Siri engineering, demonstrated the revamped assistant's capabilities on stage. The new Siri features its own dedicated app and can pull information from Apple's native app ecosystem across devices to assist with daily planning, finding information, and navigation. In a live demo, Rockwell showed how Siri could identify a beach location from a photo, retrieve a friend's address, and provide directions with a planned stop, all within the Siri interface rather than switching between multiple applications.
The updated assistant will handle tasks including proofreading, shopping, calendar management, and using the camera to extract information like nutrition details from food. Initially, the tool will only be available in English.
Apple's redesigned Siri is powered by a billion-dollar partnership with Google, utilizing Google's Gemini AI model at its core. This collaboration marks a significant shift for Apple's AI strategy after the company lagged behind competitors in rolling out artificial intelligence features. Craig Federighi, Apple's senior vice-president of software engineering, acknowledged this positioning during the conference, noting that "some appear to be racing forward, seemingly pursuing AI for the sake of AI, without clear regard for the people that it's ultimately meant to serve."
The company has repeatedly delayed Siri updates initially announced in 2024. In May, Apple agreed to pay 250 million dollars to settle a class-action lawsuit alleging it falsely advertised Siri's capabilities, with some consumers receiving payouts up to 95 dollars.
Beyond Siri, Apple announced extensive child safety features designed to give parents greater control over their children's device usage. New safeguards limit content visibility, restrict communication, and control app access. An easy-to-use setup assistant enables parents to customize what their child can view and gradually expand access as they age. Parents can also require permission before their child browses new websites and set daily time limits for specific apps based on their own preferences or recommendations from the American Academy of Pediatrics.
The company is integrating AI capabilities across its ecosystem, including Safari, messaging, the Home app, camera, and photos. These features were developed in collaboration with Google. According to Dipanjan Chatterjee, a principal analyst at Forrester, a "fundamentally re-architected Siri inside iOS 27 with a little help from Google's Gemini would signal Apple's readiness to make AI the primary interface layer across its ecosystem."