July 23, 2012: Looking for the perfect spokesman for its new virtual assistant Siri, Apple turns to the director behind some of Hollywood’s most violent gangster movies. A new ad shows Martin Scorsese using Siri voice commands on his iPhone to juggle his busy schedule.
One in a string of celebrity-studded ads showcasing Apple’s recently released virtual assistant, it ranks among the best. However, it seriously oversells Siri’s skills.
Martin Scorsese’s Apple ad inflates Siri’s skills
Apple’s barrage of Siri ads captured an early truth about voice assistants: Long before they could reliably deliver conversational AI, they were already being sold as if they could. The celebrity-stuffed campaign made Siri feel urbane, quick and uncannily capable — a vision of ambient computing that helped set consumer expectations that the technology would spend the next decade struggling to fulfill.
The ad campaign followed the 2011 launch of the iPhone 4S, which counted Siri as its headline feature. Previous Siri ads featured the likes of actors Samuel L. Jackson and John Malkovich. (An infamous one showed Zooey Deschanel peering out her window during a downpour, then asking Siri whether it was raining.)
In the Martin Scorsese ad, the legendary filmmaker uses Siri to check his calendar for the day. He engages in a bit of banter, moves his schedule around, looks up a friend named Rick, and gets real-time traffic reports.
“I like you, Siri,” Scorsese says at the end of the ad. “You’re going places.”
Bryan Buckley, who directed the Scorsese spot, went on to helm the brilliant Siri ad starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. (Apple coincidentally released that one on July 23 several years later.)
While fun to watch, the Scorsese ad overinflated Siri’s abilities. Many users noted this type of stretch during Siri’s first year, when the functionality Apple described did not jibe with reality. Critics singled out real-time traffic updates as something Siri definitely could not do, although rumors predicted the feature would arrive in the next iteration of iOS.
Watch the Scorsese ad yourself to see how well it compares to Siri’s current capabilities:
Apple goes Hollywood
Over the years, Apple has enjoyed relationships with some of the top filmmakers in Hollywood. In the 1990s, director Spike Lee appeared in an Apple commercial. Behind the camera, Apple has employed the likes of David Fincher, Spike Jonze and Errol Morris.
Today, directors like Steven Soderbergh increasingly use the iPhone to shoot their films. And of course, Cupertino’s Hollywood ties began to seriously ramp up with the launch of Apple TV+ in 2019. (Apple dropped the + streaming service’s name in 2025.) And Scorsese came full circle, with his Oscar-nominated epic Killers of the Flower Moon arriving on Apple TV+ in early 2024.
… while Siri struggles to keep up
Siri, on the other hand, has lagged behind rivals like Google Assistant and Amazon’s Alexa for years. Apple added new Siri voices in iOS 14.5, and continues to make the virtual assistant sound more human. However, the fluid conversation Scorsese has with his phone in this ad still isn’t possible, given Siri’s current state.
That all changes this fall, however. The long-delayed Siri upgrade that Apple promised at WWDC24 — known as Siri AI — arrives in iOS 27 and the rest of Apple’s operating systems this fall. Currently in beta, it finally delivers the kind of conversational, useful chatbot experience that Apple promised so long ago.
What do you think of the Martin Scorsese ad for Siri?
Do you remember the first wave of Siri commercials, including the Martin Scorsese ad, for the iPhone 4s? Were you impressed by Siri when you first used it? Let us know in the comments below.
Luke Dormehl is a U.K.-based journalist and author, with a background working in documentary film for Channel 4 and the BBC. He is the author of The Apple Revolution and The Formula: How Algorithms Solve All Our Problems … and Create More, both published by Penguin/Random House. His tech writing has also appeared in Wired, Fast Company, Techmeme and other publications.
