The move comes from an opportunity for Apple to make its regularly used virtual assistant Siri more conversational and automate multiple actions.
Apple is planning to revamp its legacy virtual assistant into LLM Siri to rival OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini Live. Apple’s AI models will power LLM Siri and help users engage in more conversational interaction and natural-sounding voice responses.
Apple’s efforts to integrate AI into its devices, including iPhones, iPads, and MACs, are aimed at going beyond textual or image outputs and tap task-handling assistance. The new Siri in the making will have expanded capabilities like capturing app intents to interact with third-party apps, while using Apple Intelligence at the core to summarize and write text for users.
The properties of something like OpenAI advanced voice mode and Siri are quite different. That OpenAI mode is great if you want to go ask a question about quantum mechanics and have it write a poem for you about it... It’s not going to open your garage. It’s not going to help you send a text message. There are many, many useful things Siri does for you every day, does them quickly and locally on your device. There’s a spectrum here, there’s a tradeoff across capabilities. Will these worlds converge? Of course, that’s where the direction is going.
Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of software.
While Apple is prioritizing launching all of its promised Apple Intelligence features by the spring of 2024, it has also become proactive in revamping various existing features in the backend. According to reports, the new LLM Siri will arrive as soon as the spring of 2026.
For now, Apple is relying heavily on third-party AI capabilities, one of which comes from its potential future rival ChatGPT. iOS 18.2 beta was rolled out last month with ChatGPT integration, enabling minor on-device assistance. While existing AI chatbots provide faster and more advanced features, they require additional permissions, which Apple may not allow for all providers.
