Apple has delayed by one year the release of its more intelligent Siri capabilities, which were originally set to arrive in 2025. The AI-driven enhancements, meant to make Siri more intuitive and capable of handling more complex tasks, will now roll out in 2026. The delay is a result of Apple struggling to merge Siri’s legacy systems with a newer AI architecture, a process that has proven more challenging than the company anticipated.
The Siri updates were part of Apple’s broader Apple Intelligence initiative, which was announced at WWDC 2024. Apple’s Apple Intelligence collection of AI tools was created to supercharge Siri so that it could perform tasks across a variety of apps and make use of personal context to give more accurate responses. Siri, for instance, was intended to assist individuals by integrating information from a series of apps, such as finding podcasts friends have recommended or retrieving flight details from family members. In addition, Siri was expected to help users fill out forms by extracting information from document snapshots.
Those features have yet to surface, however, and Apple has pulled TV ads promoting them. The company’s leaders, such as AI chief John Giannandrea and software head Craig Federighi, are working to surmount the technical hurdles. A recent executive retreat focused on accelerating Apple Intelligence and Siri development, with executives acknowledging the delay as “ugly and embarrassing” but committing to building a superior virtual assistant.
The delay puts Apple behind the likes of Google, which has launched its Gemini model, and Microsoft’s Copilot. Apple’s Siri processes some 1.5 billion requests daily from users, but today’s version is weaker than the more sophisticated capabilities envisioned. The company is developing a more personalized Siri, with more sense of people’s personal context and in and across-app functionality to perform actions, but the functionality will now debut sometime next year.
Apple has been working on a new cloud computing architecture to support these innovations, with a focus on privacy but also AI capabilities. Apple executives nonetheless intend to press on with the development of Siri despite the delay, and no significant staff changes are in the works. The delay itself highlights the challenge of integrating the newest AI into consumer products, especially in a competitive landscape where rivals are also pushing their own voice assistants aggressively.
The delay also creates a ripple effect on Apple’s grand strategy because the company had promoted Apple Intelligence as one of the primary reasons to upgrade to an iPhone. The next iPhone models, which are due later in 2025, may not include the full Apple Intelligence experience that had been anticipated. This delay could impact consumer expectations and potentially the adoption rate of future Apple products.
In the meantime, Apple introduced some new Siri features in iOS 18, including integration with ChatGPT and a more conversational interface. Those don’t represent the extent of promised enhancements, however, and users must continue to wait for a more muscular Siri. The delay underscores Apple’s cautious approach of not pushing out untested features, an approach that, while frustrating, is intended to provide a refined experience when the features ultimately do come out.
