Siri’s full-fledged AI moment is finally here.
On Monday, Apple unveiled its long-awaited, much-delayed overhaul of Siri as it looks to catch up in the AI race.
“Today, we are introducing an entirely new version of Siri, Siri unlocked by Apple Intelligence,” said Mike Rockwell, VP of engineering, said during the company’s 2026 Worldwide Developers Conference. “We call it Siri AI.”
The new Siri AI will exist within Apple’s software ecosystem but also as a standalone app. The underlying architecture of the new Siri is the result of Apple’s partnership earlier this year with Google.
Rockwell showed Siri using a variety of AI-powered capabilities, including the ability to find previously sent addresses, photos from particular locations, and more, “using your personal context.” In one example, Rockwell showed how Siri could find specific photos he needed and share them with a group without ever opening the Photos app.
Siri will have a brand new voice experience “that enables Siri to sound incredible and a lot more expressive.” Rockwell said users can also customize how expressive they want Siri to be.
Apple/Business Insider
Along with voice improvements, Rockwell said Siri is also getting a dictation improvement “with a major boost in accuracy.”
After encountering product development delays, Apple reached a deal in January with Google to have Gemini power Siri’s artificial intelligence capabilities. Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of software engineering, detailed the company’s “deep collaboration” with Google.
“Together, we created the next generation of Apple Intelligence models,” Federighi said in a video played during the WWDC.
In 2024, Apple announced a massive update to Siri, promising a more “natural” and “personal” assistant powered by Apple Intelligence. But then it ran into issues. By March 2025, Apple made the exceedingly rare move to announce that the Siri revamp was delayed.
Apple also pulled down a September 2024 ad featuring “The Last of Us” star Bella Ramsey that featured Ramsey using Siri’s AI to pull information from the calendar app to remember someone’s name.
Last month, Apple agreed to pay $250 million to settle a class-action lawsuit accusing the company of misleading customers about the availability of AI-enhanced features.
Wall Street analysts are closely watching Apple’s AI announcements. This is also Cook’s final WWDC as CEO, making it one of the last big opportunities for the legendary executive to rewrite Apple’s AI struggles.
This is a developing story…
