Apple Reaffirms Siri Overhaul Launch for This Year
Apple has reaffirmed its commitment to launch a major overhaul of Siri in 2026, despite recent reports of development delays. The new version aims to leverage on-device intelligence and recent Apple Silicon advances for more context-aware interactions. The announcement comes amid scrutiny of Apple's development pace compared to rivals rapidly iterating on AI features.
- The broader AI initiative is internally codenamed "Project Greymatter," which aims to integrate a suite of AI tools across core apps like Safari, Photos, and Notes, not just Siri. - Apple's strategy involves a hybrid processing model where less complex AI tasks are handled on-device for privacy and speed, while more intensive requests are offloaded to cloud servers powered by Apple's own M2 Ultra chips. - The foundational large language model framework is known internally as "Ajax" and was built using Google's JAX framework. For the user-facing features, Apple has also entered a multi-year agreement to use Google's Gemini models to power some of the next-generation Siri capabilities. - A more significant, fully conversational chatbot-style revamp of Siri is reportedly codenamed "Campos" and may not arrive until a later update, such as iOS 27, following the initial AI features. - The on-device performance relies heavily on the Neural Engine within Apple Silicon, which is specifically designed to accelerate machine learning tasks efficiently. The Unified Memory Architecture (UMA) in these chips also significantly speeds up AI model performance by eliminating redundant data copying between the CPU, GPU, and Neural Engine. - Specific new functionalities being tested include "Greymatter Catch Up" for summarizing missed notifications, transcribing voice memos, and executing complex, multi-step actions across different applications with a single voice command. - To bolster its AI capabilities, Apple recently made its second-largest acquisition ever, buying Israeli startup Q.ai for nearly $2 billion to acquire technology that can analyze facial expressions for "silent speech," potentially enhancing Siri's contextual understanding. - Internal testing of the new Siri has revealed performance and reliability issues, causing some planned features, like on-screen awareness and personal context understanding, to be potentially pushed to later iOS updates like 26.5 or even iOS 27.
