A report yesterday said that we will see a Siri chatbot as part of iOS 27, despite the company previously dismissing this idea.
If accurate, this will see the company adopt a two-stage strategy to finally giving the new Siri the smarts it has long lacked …
From science fiction to embarrassment
I’ve said before that when Apple first launched Siri way back in 2011, it seemed like a big step toward something that had previously been science fiction. It was the feature that had me upgrade to the iPhone 4S, and I was very impressed with it in those heady early days.
Fast forward to 2026, however, and the so-called intelligent assistant has long been an embarrassment for Apple for all the reasons we’ve discussed at length previously; I don’t need to rehash them here.
There is one Siri shortcoming I do need to discuss, but I’ll get to that.
Stage 1: A Gemini-powered Siri
Apple has long promised a much smarter new Siri, which was originally going to be powered by Apple Intelligence. That … did not go well.
Things changed dramatically last week, however, when the company confirmed reports that the new Siri will be powered by Google’s Gemini models. While OpenAI’s ChatGPT models took a dramatic early lead in generative AI, it’s now widely considered that Google’s Gemini is at least their equal and in many respects their superior.
Google’s beta launch of its new Gemini-powered Personal Intelligence feature gives us a good preview of what we can expect from the new Siri. The core benefit is the model’s ability to use a complex mix of sources to generate its responses, including personalized information pulled from the Apple apps and services we use.
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