Apple unveils Siri AI makeover as Tim Cook bids farewell

Apple has announced a significant overhaul of its digital assistant, unveiling Siri AI, which the company promised would offer a better artificial intelligence experience for users.

The iPhone maker also announced on Monday a suite of changes to its trust and safety features that it said would help keep kids safer when using Apple products.

The announcements were made at the company's annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), slated to be Tim Cook's last as CEO before he steps down in September after 15 years at the helm.

Cook will be replaced by John Ternus, who has been a major presence at WWDC but did not speak at the company's main keynote address on Monday morning.

Apple's introduction of Siri AI comes after criticism that the company has fallen behind fellow technology giants.

The new version of Siri will work across other Apple products and apps, and will also feature a new app, similar to what OpenAI and Anthropic offer for their AI assistants.

The company promised that Siri AI would draw from a user's past interactions with the app, an understanding of images, as well as broad-world knowledge and will serve as a more capable and conversational assistant than its current iteration.

During his comments, the company's perpetually sunny senior vice president of Software Engineering, Craig Federighi, leveled an unusual public critique of "AI for the sake of AI without considering the people it's supposed to be able to serve."

"We believe that truly helpful AI must be centered around you and your needs," Federighi said, adding that Apple's new Siri AI experience was designed with privacy in mind "at every step."

Apple Intelligence already offers writing tools and image editing but the company has been slow to roll out its new and improved Siri.

"Apple had to address its shortcomings in AI, and WWDC provided some answers," said Ben Wood, chief analyst at the industry analyst firm FDM CCS Insight. "The company must now prove that its privacy-led, integration-first approach can translate into a meaningfully better everyday experience, not just parity with rivals."

"Whether it has succeeded or not will come down to user reaction when new capabilities are in their hands," Wood added.

A beta version of Siri AI will be available later this year to supported devices set to English -- although not in the EU.