“It looks like Siri has gotten a massive upgrade from what we’re used to, which is it can’t really respond,” explained Macworld executive editor Michael Simon in a recent interview with Audacy’s KNX News about Apple’s big Siri AI announcement this week.
Siri’s new update kicked off the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference in Cupertino, Calif., on Monday. A variety of upgrades are expected to roll out this year as part of Siri’s makeover, including more options for voice, personal context understanding, broad real-world knowledge and more.
Right now, Siri is limited. Simon noted that the virtual assistant first launched in 2011 “doesn’t really know a lot,” and that it sometimes doesn’t understand questions. Since AI-powered chatbots like ChatGPT have become more popular in recent years, Siri seems to have fallen behind as a personal assistant.
Based on Apple’s presentation Monday, the new-and-improved, artificial intelligence-backed Siri should understand what’s on iPhone screens as well as current events. Simon said the developments are “groundbreaking,” but it’s still not clear if Apple can actually deliver on them.
“A lot of what we saw yesterday or at least, you know more than half of what we saw yesterday, we saw two years ago and we never got,” Simon told KNX on Tuesday.
Siri AI “can help users find what they need in the moment, from answering questions from the web on virtually any topic, to surfacing relevant information from a user’s personal messages, emails, photos, and more,” according to Apple. It also includes a new dedicated app where users can revisit conversations as well as an “expanded Visual Intelligence” experience and integrated writing tools.
“The coolest stuff that I saw was that… so Siri – because it’s on the on your device, because it’s private – it can hit and reach areas of the phone that other AI agents can’t. So, like I can say: ‘Uh, my son told me last week that he saw a new pair of sneakers that he liked… can you find them tell me what they are and tell me how much they cost?’ and Siri can go into your messages into your mail, it’ll know who my son is, it’ll find his messages. It’ll look for sneakers. It’ll go to the web and find how much they cost, where I can buy them and then deliver all of that in like a little message,” Simon explained.
Since Siri AI has deep access into users’ personal information, like text messages with family that Simon referenced, there are also concerns about privacy. In a Monday press release on the launch, Apple stressed its work to make sure Siri AI has protects user privacy.
“With a bold new architecture uniquely designed to protect users’ privacy, Siri AI leverages the next generation of Apple Intelligence to bring state-of-the-art understanding and reasoning, along with powerful systemwide capabilities, to Apple’s operating systems,” the company said. “These features are available for developer testing starting today, and will be available as a beta to users later this year.”
Apple also explained that it uses something called Private Cloud Compute that does not store personal data, so that data not made accessible to Apple or anyone else.
“Outside experts can continue to verify this privacy promise at any time,” said the company.
Still, users might be surprised about just how personal Siri can get with the new “personal context understanding” upgrade.
“For example, users can ask Siri to find a restaurant recommendation a friend messaged them about, surface a hotel confirmation number from an old email, or pull up photos with friends and family from a recent trip,” Apple said. “And personal context understanding extends to third-party apps when developers integrate with Spotlight,” it added referring to its system-wide search tool.
It will also be able to recognize what is on a user’s screen at any given moment and answer questions about it. Apple gave the example of Siri brainstorming recipes when a user pulls up a text invitation to a potluck event. Siri is also expected to be able to answer questions about visual content, and even help split the bill at a restaurant using an image of the check.
“Users can take advantage of this new version of Siri from anywhere across the system. In addition to saying ‘Hey Siri,’ iPhone users can invoke Siri with the side button, or swipe down from the Dynamic Island [the display at the top of iPhone screens] to start a conversation and get an in-depth answer,” Apple explained. It will also be integrated into other Apple devices like iPads, Apple Watches and Macs.
Another upgrade is expected to open up new options for Siri’s voices, including more expressive voices and a boost in accuracy. Apple said users will be able to customize the virtual assistant’s expressiveness and pacing, while improved dictation should capture what users say with more precision.
Simon said that Apple has had two years to work on features it hasn’t quite delivered on and that it partnered with Google to build a better system. Now that Siri AI has been announced, he said the coming months of developer and beta testing will show if it lives up to the hype of Monday’s presentation.
“It seemed as though some of the demos were at least live to tape,” during the event, Simon told KNX. “So, it… you know, it should be working. It will be in the betas starting now for developers and next month for the public, so we’ll be able to try this stuff. It looks like this time they’re going to at least deliver on some of the promises.”
However, there’s another question looming for Apple: will people actually use Siri AI?
“Generative AI, creating photos, creating things out of the photos that you have… it’s getting a lot of pushback now,” Simon said. “We’ll see if Apple can sell it – can deliver it and if its customers are going to respond and use it.”
