Apple acknowledges significant postponement for its AI-enhanced Siri assistant.

      Apple's initiatives to integrate advanced AI features throughout its ecosystem, similar to Google's implementation with Gemini, still have a significant way to go. A notable aspect of this is the Siri virtual assistant, which has lagged behind and still lacks the features that Apple presented at last year's developers conference.

      The company has now officially announced that a revamped Siri, capable of accessing locally stored user data and interacting with applications, has been postponed until next year. Internally referred to as "LLM Siri," this next-generation overhaul may not fully be released until the following year, with delays potentially extending into 2027.

      An Apple spokesperson, quoted by Daring Fireball, stated, “We’ve also been working on a more personalized Siri, providing it with greater awareness of your personal context and the capability to perform actions for you within and across your apps. It’s going to take us longer than anticipated to deliver these features, and we expect to roll them out in the coming year.”

      Reports indicate that Apple was initially aiming for an April release for the upgraded Siri experience, expected to coincide with the iOS 18.4 update. Concerns about the planned features malfunctioning during internal testing have been voiced by top Apple executives, including senior vice president of software engineering, Craig Federighi, according to Bloomberg.

      Some employees speculate that the proposed roadmap may be abandoned entirely, which would require Apple to rebuild from scratch. In the meantime, Apple has struck a deal with OpenAI to incorporate ChatGPT capabilities on iPhones and Macs, integrating it into the Apple Intelligence framework.

      Despite ChatGPT introducing advanced language and multimodal functionalities such as image generation and file analysis, Siri still lacks essential features that could enhance its overall functionality. Specifically, it cannot analyze user data to provide contextual responses or interact significantly with installed applications.

      Currently, Siri relies on ChatGPT. In contrast, Google's Gemini is natively available on high-end Android devices and can access data from its Workspace products like Gmail, Docs, Maps, and YouTube. Furthermore, through a system of extensions, it can convert voice commands into actionable tasks across various applications, including third-party ones like Spotify.

      Apple appears to be falling behind, and the recent delays do not bode well for the company's innovation progress. However, it is making some headway elsewhere, as evidenced by its recent partnership with Alibaba and Baidu in China to accelerate the development of Apple Intelligence for the local market.