The new Liquid Glass redesign and a slew of upcoming features across Apple’s platforms may have dominated headlines during WWDC 2025, but many observers noticed one significant omission throughout the keynote: Siri. The on-device assistant, which Apple had heavily promoted for an AI-driven overhaul at last year’s event, was barely mentioned.
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) conducted during WWDC 2025, Apple executives shed new light on the matter, offering more context behind the company’s decision to delay the improved Siri experience. Senior Vice President of Software Craig Federighi and Senior Vice President of Worldwide Marketing Greg Joswiak explained that while early development showed promise, the assistant ultimately failed to meet Apple’s standards for reliability.
To recap, Apple had introduced the upgraded Siri during WWDC 2024 as part of its broader Apple Intelligence initiative. The assistant was designed to understand personal context and carry out actions across apps. However, by March 2025, Apple confirmed it would miss the original release timeline, stating, “it’s going to take us longer than we thought to deliver.”
Speaking to WSJ, Federighi said that although the WWDC 2024 demo was based on functioning software, internal testing revealed shortfalls. “Siri didn’t converge in the way, quality-wise, that we needed it to,” he said. “We wanted it to be really, really reliable. And we weren’t able to achieve the reliability in the time we thought.”
Joswiak added that releasing a substandard version would have done more harm than delaying it. “We don’t want to disappoint customers,” he said. “But it would’ve been more disappointing to ship something that didn’t hit our quality standard, that had an error rate we felt was unacceptable. So we made what we thought was the best decision. I’d make it again.”
When asked why a company of Apple’s scale couldn’t meet the timeline, Federighi pointed to the broader challenge of dependable on-device automation. “No one’s doing it really well right now,” he noted. Apple had aimed to be first (and best) but even with promising early versions, the team concluded, “this just doesn’t work reliably enough to be an Apple product.”
The company previously indicated that the new Siri experience would launch “in the coming year.” Joswiak has since clarified that the expected rollout is slated for some time in 2026, though he stopped short of offering a specific date.
(Source: WSJ, via YouTube)
