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Since launching the much-hyped Apple Intelligence at the end of October, Apple is looking to revamp its conversational assistant, Siri.
While Siri can now send some select queries over to ChatGPT, this new version of Siri, identified by Bloomberg chief correspondent Mark Gurman at the end of last year, provides an in-house alternative to OpenAI‘s chatbot.
Apple’s overhaul of the Siri conversational assistant has been labeled by employees internally as “LLM Siri.”
This moves Siri from a virtual assistant to an artificial intelligence personal assistant in your pocket and your home — let’s explore what this means.
Key Takeaways
- Apple is reportedly working on LLM Siri – a “more conversational version” of the popular assistant.
- The new model, known internally as “LLM Siri,” is expected to launch in 2026 as part of iOS 19 and macOS 16.
- Apple looks to target generative AI assistants like ChatGPT and Gemini and allow an LLM Siri to interact with third-party apps.
- With Apple’s market and mindshare, the tech giant may be able to reach a much larger audience than competitors.
What We Know About LLM Siri
Based on conversations with Apple insiders, Gurman believes the Siri upgrade will use large language models (LLMs) to improve the assistant’s conversational and ‘agentic’ capabilities.
The new version could launch in early 2026 after iOS 19 and macOS 16 are released.
LLM Siri will be a “more conversational version” of Siri, using generative AI to respond to “sophisticated requests.”
This will allow context-driven conversations with Siri and perform native actions with third-party apps.
But as Brian Jackson, principal research director at Info-Tech Research Group, told Techopedia, it will not be an easy journey:
“To launch an LLM-backed Siri in 2026, it seems like Apple will be way behind in integrating LLMs into its mobile OS.
“If it meets the reported target of Spring 2026, that is about 3.5 years after ChatGPT was launched on the web.
“However, it seems like Apple understands that it will have to leapfrog its capabilities straight to AI agents”.
AI agents give AI decision-making powers, allowing it to act autonomously on your behalf.
Examples can include adding calendar appointments for you without waiting for a prompt or finding and booking trips with third parties for you — “Hey Siri, book me cheap flights to Paris and a hotel on these dates.”
The new Siri is reportedly being tested as part of a standalone app for iPhone, iPad, and Mac.
How Will LLM Siri Work?
In this sense, the next generation of Siri will likely function as a hybrid of Siri and Apple Intelligence.
We have already seen Apple add automated notification summaries, audio recordings, and image lookup capabilities with Apple Intelligence, so we expect these native interactions to be fleshed out further with the next-generation Siri assistance.
In addition, given the success of ChatGPT and GPT-4o as voice assistants, we can expect to see the new version of Siri attempt to provide a much more accurate and refined voice-to-voice experience for users.
One of the biggest complaints about the current generation of Siri is that its speech recognition capabilities are inconsistent, particularly during dictation tasks. With other AI models succeeding, Apple will need to up its game.
Can Siri Compete With ChatGPT?
While Siri can be traced back to February 2010, Apple’s slow approach to embracing LLMs has led to competitors like OpenAI and Google stealing its thunder.
In terms of raw capabilities, Siri is outclassed compared to ChatGPT or Gemini in areas including content creation, image generation, and coding.
OpenAI has built ChatGPT into a multimodal AI juggernaut, which users can interact with via text or voice, and it can then handle everything from question and answers, to text summarization, to image generation with DALL-E 3, to translation.
Siri’s approach is slightly different. The tool acts as a virtual assistant for iPhone, iPad, and Mac, but in its current form, Siri is better placed to address brief queries with simple answers rather than complex outputs like ChatGPT.
That being said, Siri’s connection to the Apple ecosystem makes it a force to be reckoned with, as it is accessible to users across iOS, iPadOS, and MacOS, and on devices including the iPhone, iPad, MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, and Apple Watch.
The iPhone alone has the largest smartphone market share in the US at 57%, so if Apple can launch successfully, it will easily provide a much more accessible alternative to ChatGPT.
So Apple will be able to instantly capture a market base without the challenges that ChatGPT or Gemini face, as long as the product is good.
Apple’s main issue is that it has to complete a lot of development in a very short space of time. The AI race has been full-speed ahead since the launch of ChatGPT in November 2022, and Apple has been very slow to commit to using LLMs in its product ecosystem.
Although, as Apple CEO Tim Cook puts it: “Be best, not first”.
Even Elon Musk, who has performed exceptionally well in developing and promoting the Grok assistant, hasn’t achieved a large market. But Apple will be sailing with a laefe in-built audience.
The Bottom Line
The prospect of an LLM Siri release is a good sign that Apple is serious about improving its AI credentials.
Although Apple is a creative powerhouse, we wonder whether the tech giant can go from a lukewarm Apple Intelligence release to releasing the best AI virtual assistant on the market.
In the competitive world of LLM research, you can’t just stroll late into the game and put out a model that blows ChatGPT out of the water.
But if anyone can change the world, don’t bet against Apple.
