Apple is undertaking a major overhaul of Siri, rebuilding the virtual assistant from scratch as a large language model (LLM)-powered platform. This decisive move comes after the company faced criticism and setbacks with its earlier ´Intelligence´ features, which sparked user frustration and even led to legal challenges. Rather than patching the original Siri or relying on incremental updates, Apple is now focused on developing a next-generation assistant that embraces the full capabilities of modern LLM technologies.
The shift in strategy was detailed in a report by Bloomberg´s Mark Gurman, who emphasized Apple´s prior reluctance to invest heavily in Artificial Intelligence infrastructure, such as GPUs crucial for running advanced language models. Until late 2022, internal leadership—including Artificial Intelligence chief John Giannandrea—remained skeptical of the demand for chatbot-style assistants on mobile devices. Instead, Apple attempted to integrate new Artificial Intelligence features into the existing Siri framework, but these efforts frequently led to further complications and failed to keep pace with competitors in the rapidly evolving Artificial Intelligence landscape.
The new LLM-powered Siri is designed to be more naturally conversational and significantly better at synthesizing information. A key upcoming feature will allow Siri to access and pull data from across the internet, mimicking the robust web-sourcing abilities seen in services like Perplexity. This web integration aims to make Siri more contextually aware and flexible, letting it deliver nuanced answers by aggregating information from multiple sources in real time. The change signals Apple´s renewed commitment to catching up with industry leaders in Artificial Intelligence, and positions the company to deliver a smarter, more responsive Siri experience to users worldwide. Observers will be watching closely to see if this strategic reset can restore Apple´s standing in the field and regain customer trust.
