Apple on Monday announced an all-new version of Siri during its Worldwide Developers Conference, a move that could bring its roughly 15-year-old digital helper up to speed with rivals like ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini.
The tech giant also announced performance improvements for its iPhone, Mac and iPad software and new child safety features. But the new Siri is the biggest indication yet of how Apple is revamping its products as more people use chatbots and AI agents for everyday tasks.
Many will be looking to see whether Apple’s history of turning nascent technologies into popular products will apply to AI, especially after the company’s AI ambitions have faced delays.
“If Apple delivers this well, Siri stops being a feature and becomes a new interaction layer for the iPhone, iPad, Mac and eventually future categories of hardware,” Francisco Jeronimo, a tech analyst for market research firm the International Data Corporation, told CNN over email.
The new Siri, which Apple is calling Siri AI, will be available on Apple devices both in a standalone app and throughout the company’s software. It will be able to analyze what’s on a user’s screen and incorporate information from a person’s Apple devices to better answer questions.
Apple plans to launch Siri AI in beta later this year. The company typically releases new software updates in the fall after giving developers and the public the chance to test them.
The company also says Siri will be able to factor personal information on a user’s iPhone into answers, such as referring to photos on a user’s phone when answering queries.
The new Siri will also have a more conversational chatbot-like interface and will work across Apple devices and apps.
Apple wants users to chat back-and-forth with Siri the way they do with ChatGPT for tasks like brainstorming and event planning, such as asking Siri for the schedule of upcoming World Cup games and then having the assistant plan a watch party. The new Siri app will let users revisit previous conversations.
The camera app will also have a new Siri mode that can answer questions and take actions based on what a user is pointing their camera at. At a restaurant, that could including a customer pointing the camera at the bill, selecting what they ordered and having Siri calculate what they owe. On Mac computers, it will soon be possible to select content on screen and then type to Siri to ask a question about the selected media.
The updates come after Google and OpenAI have launched tools that allow users to incorporate photos and other media into AI queries.
The company also noted that some features, like image generation, may have daily usage limits because they rely on powerful models, which are likely expensive to run.
Siri will also support more accurate dictation and more realistic voice options on certain devices, like the iPhone Air, iPhone 17 Pro and iPad and Mac models that run on Apple’s latest chips.
Apple also showed how it’s infusing more AI across apps like Messages, its Safari browser and its Home app for managing smart home devices. Apple Intelligence will be able to organize Safari tabs by topic, and users will be able to create new browser extensions with a prompt. The Messages app will suggest actions, like creating a reminder or a note, based on the content of a conversation. And the Home app will be able to analyze clips from connected cameras generate descriptions.
Apple has fallen behind in the AI race; its Siri overhaul has faced delays, and some features shown Monday were initially slated for last year. Its current AI tools for iPhones, iPads and Macs, called Apple Intelligence, aren’t distinctive enough to stand out from the competition.
Apple previously rolled out features for translating speech, helping users search for content displayed on their iPhone’s screen and generating custom emojis. But companies like Google and OpenAI are launching AI agents they say can handle entire tasks on a user’s behalf.
“(Apple hasn’t) done anything that really blows people away,” Gene Munster, cofounder and managing partner of tech investment firm Deepwater Asset Management, told CNN ahead of WWDC.
The upgraded Siri could help Apple catch up.
Apple is partnering with Google on the models that will power its new Siri and other features, the companies announced in January, which could significantly improve the digital assistant’s performance, according to Anurag Rana, senior equity analyst for software and IT services at Bloomberg Intelligence.
“Gemini models have been just on a tear,” Rana said to CNN before WWDC. “They have been doing really well right now.”
Investors and analysts have grilled Apple about its AI strategy on earnings calls over the past year. Although iPhone sales have been thriving, Wall Street wants to know how AI plays into the company’s long-term vision.
It will soon be up to incoming Apple CEO John Ternus, who currently oversees Apple’s hardware engineering and will take over as chief executive in September. Cook will transition into a new role as executive chairman of the board of directors.
Monday’s keynote was likely Cook’s last major event as CEO.
“On a personal note, some of the greatest highlights of my time as CEO have been events like this,” Cook said at the end of Apple’s presentation.
Dan Ives, global head of technology research for Wedbush Securities, called the Siri upgrades a “step in the right direction” for Apple’s AI strategy and said it sets up Cook to pass the baton to Ternus.
Apple’s large market share – more than 2.5 billion Apple devices are in use globally – could give it an edge in AI.
That could be Apple’s big opportunity. More than half of iPhones in use globally, or about 1 billion iPhones, don’t support Apple Intelligence since the technology is only available on the iPhone 15 Pro and later, according to Rana.
“They’re not going to mess it up,” Munster said. “They’ve got too much at stake to drop the ball.”
This story has been updated.
