AI-powered ‘more personalized Siri’ is delayed

Apple is delaying the rollout of the “more personalized Siri” experience it promised as part of its rollout of Apple Intelligence. According to a statement from the tech giant published on Friday by Apple blog Daring Fireball, the company admits it will “take us longer than we thought to deliver” on these new Siri features. Apple now anticipates rolling them out in the “coming year.”

Announced at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference last year, the new, more personalized Siri was meant to upgrade the beleaguered digital assistant with the ability to understand your personal context, like your relationships, your communications, your routine, and more, CEO Tim Cook said at the time. He called the upgrade not just artificial intelligence, but personal intelligence, hyping it as the “next big step for Apple.”

In addition, the Siri update would make the service more useful by giving it the ability to take action for you within and across your apps.

The announcement comes at a time when Apple is seemingly falling behind on AI, critics argue, which has made Siri appear even less capable when compared with modern-day AI assistants like ChatGPT. Recently, users have reported Siri reporting basic facts incorrectly, leading some, like technology investor M.G. Siegler, to wonder if it was time to shut off Siri altogether or swap it out (instead of only augment it) with ChatGPT.