According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, Apple plans to release a significant update for Siri next month. The company has updated its artificial intelligence approach, established a partnership with Google, reorganized its executive team, and is working on two upcoming versions of Siri. Apple plans to release these updates in conjunction with its 2026 Mac products and its new design leadership under CEO candidate John Ternus.
Siri and AI Challenges
As a result of delays in developing its own AI and Siri projects, Apple’s executives also looked at third-party solutions. While internal models remained a priority, talent departures—including foundation models lead Ruoming Pang—occurred. Apple’s AI had fallen behind competitors, making the Siri delay a major setback.
Search for AI Partners
Apple examined partnership possibilities with Anthropic PBC and OpenAI but encountered difficulties because Anthropic required multi-billion-dollar contracts for their services and OpenAI presented problems that would reduce access to both their personnel and computing resources. Google emerged as the most viable partner. Improvements in Google Gemini models and a favorable ruling on Apple-Google’s $20 billion annual search deal enabled collaboration. By November, Apple finalized an agreement to integrate Gemini models into Siri and Apple Intelligence, initially running on Apple’s Private Cloud Compute, with plans to use Google infrastructure for advanced models.
Upcoming Siri Updates
The first updated Siri, codenamed Apple Foundation Models v10, will debut publicly in February before iOS 26.4 beta testing. Powered by 1.2 trillion parameter Gemini models, it promises improved personal assistant capabilities.
A complete redesign of Siri which developers call Campos will launch at WWDC 2026 together with the new operating systems iOS 27 and iPadOS 27 and macOS 27. The system will establish its presence through context detection while maintaining continuous conversation abilities which will enable it to compete against ChatGPT and Google Gemini and Microsoft Copilot. A more advanced version, Apple Foundation Models v11, may run on Google’s cloud TPUs for enhanced performance.
Organizational Changes and AI Strategy Shift
Craig Federighi now leads Apple’s AI initiatives after sidelining former AI chief John Giannandrea. The projects World Knowledge Answers and AI-powered Safari have been reduced in size. Apple is directing its resources towards AI implementation in its main applications instead of developing independent chatbot systems.
The organization will keep developing its device-based AI systems but currently focuses on building its cloud AI systems. Apple is upgrading internal servers to support these efforts while facing talent retention challenges. A planned external acquisition was canceled, prioritizing user-facing AI implementation over internal model expansion.
Outlook
Apple’s redesigned Siri is expected to reset its AI strategy, leveraging Google Gemini models to deliver a context-aware, conversational assistant. Cloud-based AI will be treated as a commodity, while Apple continues to focus on device-level AI and user experience.
