Apple Overhauls Siri with AI-Powered Revamp

Apple's drastic overhaul of Siri, announced Monday at WWDC 2026, attempts to make the smartphone voice assistant more helpful, attuned to iPhone users' personal data, and action-oriented. A major aspect of this Siri revamp is a partnership with Google Gemini to help power the AI tool's underlying model as part of Apple Intelligence. After extended delays, Apple is moving forward with a dynamic repositioning of Siri that changes how the voice assistant appears on iPhones and gives people a new way to access it: a stand-alone Siri app.

This revamp is expected to roll out to consumers later this year. Soon, users will also be able to have chatbot-style interactions with Siri and access past conversations, similar to the user experience on ChatGPT. Siri will also be able to use personal information stored on your phone—including what's currently on your screen—when answering questions.

Before this announcement, Siri had stayed relatively static while the generative AI revolution raged around it. Other voice assistants like Google's Gemini, Anthropic's Claude, and OpenAI's ChatGPT were able to eclipse Apple's efforts in a short time. "Over the last few years, with the growth of large language models, some of these assistants have gotten tremendously capable—while Siri has remained relatively programmatic and limited in what it can do," says Avi Greengart, a lead analyst and president of Techsponential, a market advisory firm.

This new Siri can simply do more. If you want help composing an email, the revamped Siri can pull in contextual information from your Apple devices, like details tucked away in your Notes app, to generate a response for you. It can even compose draft texts to send to your group chats.

Siri is following a similar pitch set forth by other hot assistants in 2026: Give the AI tool more personal info so it can be a better helper. In 2011, when Apple decided to integrate Siri into the iPhone 4s, it was a breakthrough moment for smartphone voice assistants. This nascent version of Siri could check the weather, make appointments, and set timers.

The Zooey Deschanel launch video where she lounges around in pajamas and asks Siri whether it's raining outside is permanently etched into my brain. Rather than some app you needed to download, the voice assistant was now built right into the device. As the years progressed, other companies' voice assistants started to catch up with Apple's Siri, leading to hand-wringing articles, in outlets like this one, about whether the iPhone maker was losing its edge.

Why this matters: The revamped Siri has significant implications for the broader AI industry, as it signals a major shift towards more personalized and action-oriented voice assistants. For developers, this means a new set of opportunities to integrate their apps and services with Siri, potentially leading to more seamless and intuitive user experiences. For businesses, the updated Siri could enable new use cases, such as customer support and sales automation.