Siri is overdue for some major AI upgrades. They were originally set to arrive earlier this year, but have been pushed into 2026 instead. But according to a recent report, it sounds like they could truly be worth the wait.
Siri is getting a complete overhaul in iOS 26.4, powered by LLMs
If you follow AI developments very closely, you’ll know that while other tech companies are regularly shipping new advancements, Apple’s AI output has been lacking.
There are plenty of solid Apple Intelligence features currently available, but Siri has been a pain point.
Siri got a few minor upgrades in iOS 18, but the biggest changes are now expected in iOS 26.4 next spring.
These include:
- App Intents for truly hands-free computing
- ’LLM Siri’
- Personal context knowledge
- On-screen awareness
Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman recently highlighted the potential impact of these changes: “If Apple nails this, it’s not just a nice ease-of-use upgrade — it’s the fulfillment of the vision Siri promised nearly 15 years ago.”
Taken together, these upgrades amount to a total overhaul for Siri.
Apple will greatly expand not only what Siri can do, but also how it all happens thanks to an LLM-based architecture.
Like we saw at WWDC last year, Siri will be able to take action inside of apps, and across apps, without you ever lifting a finger. Per Gurman, “Essentially, Siri [will] operate your apps like you would — with precision, inside their own interfaces.”
This isn’t just about making Siri smarter. It’s about giving Apple’s ecosystem a new, voice-first interface. If the company is actually able to bring it to market (and that’s a gigantic if), it could potentially be a hit that many users didn’t see coming.
What’s being described sounds like a truly “new era” for Siri.
A new era for Siri that’s truly compelling
Imagine the intelligence of ChatGPT, but unleashed on all the apps on your iPhone, iPad, Mac, Vision Pro, and more. And with knowledge of how you normally use your devices.
That’s the new Siri being promised.
These capabilities certainly expose the heightened importance of user privacy compared to competing AI offerings.
In fact, the more I consider the scope of what Apple is working on, the more clear it seems that shipping early this year would have been extremely risky.
Top comment by Luke Authier
While I am eagerly awaiting a new, better Siri, I think we need to take a step back and realize the biggest problem with these AI's is hallucinations. While ChatGPT is relatively popular, I doubt it has close to the user base of iPhones, or Apple products in general. Imagine a billion Apple devices asking for medical advice and it gets something wrong. While Apple could use the whole, "AI gets it wrong sometimes," I think we have all come to expect better of Apple. If they release it and it is giving hallucinations about serious things, they will be opening themselves up to lawsuits galore.
There’s tremendous upside if Apple gets this right, but delivering a lackluster system would have been tough to recover from.
Siri’s new capabilities, grounded in the brand new LLM-based architecture, sound like the kind of changes we’ve all been waiting for.
And though that wait has been longer than expected, if Apple can deliver what it’s promised, we should be in for quite the upgrade.
How are you feeling about Apple’s forthcoming Siri upgrades? Let us know in the comments.
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