Jun 09, 2025 17:00:00

Former Apple employee explains why the development of an AI-enhanced version of Siri is lagging behind

When Apple announced its AI system '

Apple Intelligence ' on June 11, 2024, it revealed plans to integrate AI functions into its voice assistant 'Siri,' but as of the time of writing, the AI-integrated version of Siri has not been released. A former Apple employee spoke to the Financial Times about why it is difficult to integrate Siri and AI.

Apple's struggles to update Siri lead to investor concerns over AI strategy
https://www.ft.com/content/785aeb00-6784-4d64-a706-0cb44288e6be

Among the additional features of Siri announced in June 2024, 'the ability to call Siri by double tapping the bottom of the screen' and 'the ability to have ChatGPT answer questions that are difficult for Siri to answer on your behalf' have already been released. However, some features have not been implemented, and the feature 'automatically recognizes what is displayed on the screen and performs actions' introduced on the official Apple Intelligence page has a note that 'This feature is currently under development.'

A potentially useful feature called 'performing actions across multiple apps' is also currently under development.

It has also been reported that Apple is developing an 'evolved Siri' that uses AI to improve voice interaction functions, but development of this 'evolved Siri' has also been delayed, leading an Apple spokesperson to state that the release date has been postponed to 2026.

Apple confirms that the release of Apple Intelligence's 'evolved Siri' has been delayed to 2026 - GIGAZINE

A former Apple employee who recently left the company told the Financial Times, 'Apple is trying to create a true conversational assistant by building its own large-scale language model (LLM) based on the machine learning technology that underpins Siri today. However, a bug occurred when integrating the LLM with traditional machine learning technology.' AI companies such as OpenAI are not affected by this problem because they are building LLMs from scratch, but Apple is facing problems because it is trying to build LLMs as an extension of existing technology.

In addition, Apple is committed to processing AI functions on-device rather than in the cloud to protect user privacy, and this on-device AI processing is also a major issue.

Furthermore, a former Apple executive told the Financial Times, 'There was a lack of a unified strategy around AI within Apple, and executives were initially unwilling to allocate a sufficient budget to developing AI technology, which made the situation worse.'

Apple is restructuring its AI development team, appointing Kim Voras as head of its AI division.

Apple is serious about strengthening its AI division, veteran executives known for project management are transferred to strengthen Apple Intelligence and Siri - GIGAZINE

Apple is scheduled to hold the developer conference ' WWDC2025 ' from June 9, 2025 local time, and the keynote speech starting at 2:00 on June 10, 2025 Japan time is expected to announce new features for various operating systems such as iOS and macOS. GIGAZINE will also be updating the announcements in real time, so please check it out.