Elyse Betters Picaro / ZDNET
ZDNET's key takeaways
A new LLM Siri should launch sometime in March.
This new Siri may act like an AI chatbot but offer specific skills.
This Siri also needs to be less error-prone.
There's a scene from an episode of Larry David's "Curb Your Enthusiasm" in which David is in his car trying to get driving directions from Siri. But each time he utters a command, Siri completely misinterprets what he says and serves up the wrong response. This goes on for a while. Finally out of patience, David hurls some nasty expletives at Siri, which the voice assistant also misunderstands, leaving him with no directions and lots of frustration.
That scene strikes a familiar chord among those of us who've lived with Siri over the years. Despite plenty of promised improvements and fixes, Apple's voice assistant is still as frustrating to use as ever. Reportedly, Apple will soon be releasing a revamped version of Siri designed to act more like an advanced AI chatbot, a la ChatGPT and Google Gemini. Will this new LLM Siri finally be the one we've always wanted? Let's see what's in store.
Also: Apple's AI search engine could be driven by Google and help revive Siri, report says
Reports of a new LLM (large language model) Siri surfaced in late 2024. At the time, Apple watcher Mark Gurman said that this upcoming version was already being tested internally on iPhones, iPads, and Macs as a standalone app. The goal was to launch the new Siri sometime in the spring of 2026. And so far, that timeframe appears to be on track.
The latest reports noted by 9to5Mac and others say that LLM Siri will debut with iOS 26.4 in March. iOS 26.3 is currently in its first round of beta testing in advance of an expected release around the end of January. That means iOS 26.4 should pop up as a beta in February.
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