Despite big promises, the Siri experience in iOS 18 is nowhere as good as it should be. An improved Siri reportedly will arrive with iOS 18.5 in May this year, one that is much smarter. However, don’t expect Siri to become like ChatGPT or Gemini until at least 2027.
There’s a long wait ahead for a smarter Siri
Apple has long struggled to make Siri, the voice assistant that debuted in 2011 on the iPhone 4s, live up to its promise and be useful in daily life. The voice assistant frequently confuses commands and struggles to process even the most basic ones. With AI advancements, many hoped Apple would finally deliver the Siri experience we were always promised.
The company even showed off an improved Siri at WWDC24 as part of iOS 18. However, five months after the operating system’s public release, the voice assistant has been nowhere near as good as Apple promised.
In his latest Power On newsletter, Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman sheds more light on Apple’s struggles with the AI-powered Siri. He thinks Apple will release the smarter Siri with iOS 18.5 in May, allowing it to interact with apps. This would use a separate engine that would be more capable of handling advanced users. The older engine would remain, powering basic commands like timers and making calls.
Apple reportedly will merge the two Siri engines with a new architecture as part of iOS 19. Previous reports indicated Apple would show off this LLM-powered, more-conversational Siri as part of iOS 19 at WWDC25 in June. However, Gurman’s sources say that might not happen, as the company is running behind on its plans.
Apple first needs to fix Siri’s underlying engine, and that’s why “people within Apple’s AI division now believe that a true modernized, conversational version of Siri won’t reach consumers until iOS 20 at best in 2027,” says Gurman.
iOS 19 could be light on Apple Intelligence improvements
With AI hogging all the limelight, you’d expect iOS 19 to introduce several new Apple Intelligence features.
Apparently, that won’t happen, with Gurman’s sources saying iOS 19 will not include any major user-facing Apple Intelligence changes. That makes sense, because the company continues to work rolling out the AI features it initially promised as part of iOS 18 in 2024. No wonder Apple is pulling out the big guns to fix Siri and Apple Intelligence.
