Waiting For Apple Siri AI Upgrade? Big Setback In Fight With Google Gemini, Amazon Alexa

Apple’s artificial intelligence woes don’t seem to end.  After facing problems with a staggered Apple Intelligence rollout, along with roll-back of features such as News Summaries due to glaring errors, the latest AI mishap at Apple seems to be Siri. And this is going to impact its fight with Google Gemini and Amazon Alexa.

The Cupertino-based company has now reportedly postponed expected AI updates to its Siri digital assistant until 2026. Company spokesperson Jacqueline Roy told The Verge about the delay, saying “Siri helps our users find what they need and get things done quickly, and in just the past six months, we’ve made Siri more conversational, introduced new features like type to Siri and product knowledge, and added an integration with ChatGPT. We’ve also been working on a more personalised Siri, giving it more awareness of your personal context, as well as the ability to take action for you within and across your apps. It’s going to take us longer than we thought to deliver on these features and we anticipate rolling them out in the coming year.”

Functionalities announced by Apple last June, such as Siri’s capability to access a user’s personal data to respond to inquiries and exert greater control over applications, will now be launched sometime in 2026. 

Apple had not earlier established a timeline for these features, but they were expected to be released with the iOS 18. 4 software update this April. Apple attributed the delay to a development process that took longer than anticipated, although it did not specify the exact reasons for this postponement.

Apple’s Siri delays come at a time when companies such as Amazon, Google and others are powering ahead with new capabilities in their voice assistants. 

Recently, Amazon revealed plans for an enhanced iteration of its Alexa voice assistant, although the new model has not yet been launched. Additionally, Google is developing enhanced features for its Gemini assistant.