Apple is exploring a significant overhaul of its voice assistant Siri by potentially adopting advanced AI models from Anthropic or OpenAI, according to renowned Apple analyst Mark Gurman.
The iPhone maker has engaged in talks with both OpenAI and Anthropic to develop customised versions of their large language models (LLMs) that could run on Apple’s private cloud infrastructure for testing and eventual deployment. If Apple proceeds, it would sideline its internally developed AI models in favour of leveraging the cutting-edge capabilities of Anthropic’s Claude or OpenAI’s ChatGPT to enhance Siri’s conversational intelligence.
Siri to rely on ChatGPT/Claude?
This strategic pivot comes amid ongoing challenges for Apple in delivering a competitive AI assistant experience. Despite years of investment and high-profile hirings, Apple has struggled to match the conversational fluency and contextual understanding demonstrated by rivals like OpenAI and Google. The company had planned to launch a new Siri powered by its own foundation models in 2026 but has delayed the rollout amid internal leadership changes and technical hurdles.
Apple currently uses OpenAI’s ChatGPT for limited functions within Siri. Users on supported iPhones can use it to answer web search queries. However, Apple is yet to fully integrate it with iOS or Siri.
Gurman says that internal testing reportedly shows Anthropic’s Claude 3 offers advantages such as reduced hallucination rates and easier customisation for Apple’s privacy standards.
Leadership change delaying AI dreams?
Apple’s AI teams have seen recent leadership changes, with Craig Federighi taking a more direct role and Mike Rockwell, formerly of Apple Vision Pro, leading the Siri group. The company is expected to continue refining Siri’s AI while maintaining a strong emphasis on user privacy and security.
“The effort to explore outside large language models instead of its Apple Foundation Models has taken a toll on its AI team. Tom Gunter, one of its top engineers, left last week. And the team behind MLX, Apple’s open source AI framework, threatened to quit,” writes Gurman in one of his posts on X.
With a change of brains, Apple seems to be falling behind in realising its goals of releasing a new-gen Siri chatbot. A tie-up with OpenAI or Anthropic could help Apple push the Siri assistant as a legitimate attempt at giving iPhone, iPad and Mac users a helpful AI assistant.
