Apple knows it has a Siri problem. It’s about to fix it
By Lisa Eadicicco, CNN
(CNN) — For one of his final major public moments as Apple’s CEO, Tim Cook may give Wall Street something it’s long been waiting for: answers about the company’s artificial intelligence strategy.
Apple is expected to reveal an all-new version of Siri on Monday at its Worldwide Developers Conference, potentially bringing the roughly 15-year-old virtual assistant up to speed with OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini.
The tech giant will also announce software updates that will impact the billions of iPhones, iPads, Macs and Apple Watches around the world. But the new Siri could be the biggest indication yet of how Apple is revamping its products as more people use chatbots and AI agents for everyday tasks. Many will be looking to see whether Apple’s history of turning nascent technologies into popular products will apply to AI.
Apple has fallen behind in the AI race; its Siri overhaul has faced delays, and some features that were announced in 2024 still haven’t arrived. And its current AI tools for iPhones, iPads and Macs, called Apple Intelligence, aren’t distinctive enough to stand out from the competition.
Apple has rolled out features for translating speech, helping users search for content displayed on their iPhone’s screen and generating custom emojis. But companies like Google and OpenAI are launching AI agents they say can handle entire tasks on a user’s behalf.
“(Apple hasn’t) done anything that really blows people away,” said Gene Munster, cofounder and managing partner of tech investment firm Deepwater Asset Management.
The upgraded Siri could help Apple catch up. Apple’s digital helper may soon be able to handle multiple tasks with a single command and get a dedicated app with a chatbot-style interface among other changes, according to Bloomberg.
Apple is partnering with Google on the models that will power its new Siri, the companies announced in January, which could significantly improve the digital assistant’s performance, according to Anurag Rana, senior equity analyst for software and IT services at Bloomberg Intelligence.
“Gemini models have been just on a tear,” Rana said. “They have been doing really well right now.”
Investors and analysts have grilled Apple about its AI strategy on earnings calls over the past year. Although iPhone sales have been thriving, Wall Street wants to know how AI plays into the company’s long-term vision.
It will soon be up to incoming Apple CEO John Ternus, who currently oversees Apple’s hardware engineering and will take over as chief executive in September. Cook will transition into a new role as executive chairman of the board of directors.
But Apple’s large market share – more than 2.5 billion Apple devices are in use globally – could give it an edge.
That could be Apple’s big opportunity. More than half of iPhones in use globally, or about 1 billion iPhones, don’t support Apple Intelligence since the technology is only available on the iPhone 15 Pro and later, according to Rana.
“They’re not going to mess it up,” Munster said. “They’ve got too much at stake to drop the ball.”
The-CNN-Wire
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