There’s no doubt that Apple’s rollout of its “Intelligence” features alongside the improved Siri has been a disaster, even sparking calls for a lawsuit. Now, it appears the company is ready to take AI seriously, starting by building an entirely new Siri powered by large language models from the ground up.
This report comes from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, who took a deep dive into Apple’s upcoming AI plans and why the Cupertino giant struggled to deliver a successful product initially. According to Gurman, Apple missed the AI momentum that other tech giants capitalized on, largely due to a lack of confidence in this area of technology.
Apple Intelligence didn’t really take shape until late 2022, following the arrival of ChatGPT. The company was also hesitant to invest heavily in the GPUs needed to power these AI models. Apple’s AI chief, John Giannandrea, believed people wouldn’t want chatbots on their phones. On top of that, Apple kept trying to patch new AI features onto the old Siri, which only led to more problems.
An Apple employee told Gurman, “It’s whack-a-mole. You fix one issue, and three more crop up,” referring to the challenges with the new Siri. Now, the iPhone maker is revamping its approach by developing an LLM-based Siri that will be “more believably conversational and better at synthesizing information” something we’ve discussed previously.
Another way Apple plans to enhance the LLM-powered Siri is by giving it access to the web, enabling it to “grab and synthesize data from multiple sources,” similar to Perplexity. It’s clear the company is rethinking its strategy and aiming to fix its troubled AI rollout. It’s only a matter of time before we see this improved Siri in action. What do you think about this? Do you believe Apple can make things right with its customers? Let us know in the comments below.
