Apple is facing major blocks in its first-party artificial intelligence integration into Siri, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reports. Originally planned as a scheduled update in April as part of iOS 18.4, the major overhaul to its built-in assistant is said to be pushed back to May or later, and will instead be included with iOS 18.5.
Gurman notes that several engineering issues have affected Siri’s performance, causing smart features to function inconsistently. Apple first announced the AI overhaul for its assistant during WWDC 2024 in June last year, but it remains the latest of its Apple Intelligence features to roll out.
With Siri’s intended ability to tap into artificial intelligence, it is predicted that Apple may be able to compete with other major AI platforms such as ChatGPT by OpenAI. Apple’s struggle in developing its own AI platform may also affect future plans, Gurman adds, which may cause pushing some features from its upcoming iOS 19 update to next year.
Apple’s overhaul of Siri with Apple Intelligence aims to make it more conversational and context-aware, bringing it closer to AI assistants like ChatGPT. As announced last year, it will feature on-screen awareness for recognising and responding to content displayed on the iPhone. It will also leverage a new platform, App Intents, to perform tasks across first- and third-party apps without opening them, such as finding, editing and saving a photo. Additionally, Siri will be able to personalise responses by interpreting personal data like emails, messages and photos.
(Source: Bloomberg / GSMArena)
Manisha Dharmendra contributed to this article.
