Here comes new Siri again

Apple is preparing to reintroduce a rebuilt Siri digital assistant at its Worldwide Developers Conference, this time built on top of Google’s Gemini AI platform, according to a report from The Verge [1]. The move follows a troubled rollout of the company’s own Apple Intelligence features. The company first previewed a redesigned Siri in 2024 alongside the announcement of Apple Intelligence, promising a more capable assistant with a new visual interface and the ability to hand off complex queries to OpenAI’s ChatGPT [1]. Those advanced intelligence features were delayed and ultimately did not ship, leading to a class-action lawsuit that Apple is now settling by compensating iPhone owners [1]. The new version, expected to be detailed at WWDC, will be “built on top of Gemini in some fashion,” with Apple paying Google for the integration [1]. Google’s Gemini assistant has already demonstrated the ability to perform multi-step tasks such as ordering ride shares and food delivery, and analyzing a user’s calendar to suggest departure times [1]. Apple’s approach places a layer of its own software on top of Google’s model, a strategy that may allow the company to distance itself from the physical infrastructure demands of the AI boom. The report notes that Apple does not have its name attached to large, often unpopular data-center construction projects, even as its payments to Google indirectly support that buildout [1]. Apple Inc., founded in 1976 and headquartered in Cupertino, California, has historically positioned itself as a consumer electronics and services company with a strong emphasis on user privacy [6]. The company’s product ecosystem, which includes the iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple Watch, is tightly integrated with its proprietary operating systems and the Siri voice assistant, first introduced in 2011 [6]. The Apple Watch, for example, operates in close conjunction with the iPhone and remains the only smartwatch with full system-level support on Apple’s mobile platform [5]. The broader AI landscape has been defined by rapid adoption and public scrutiny since the release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in November 2022 [3]. The chatbot reached 100 million monthly active users within two months and has fueled public debate over misinformation, academic dishonesty, and the use of copyrighted material for training data [3]. Against this backdrop, Apple is expected to emphasize privacy safeguards for the new Siri, including its Private Cloud Compute architecture and an option to automatically delete chat history after a set period, framing the assistant as a more secure alternative for users wary of sharing personal data [1].