Something to look forward to: Apple is expected to showcase iOS 18 at WWDC in a couple of weeks, with multiple leaks already giving us some insight into the upcoming release. The latest rumors suggest that the operating system will introduce AI capabilities for Siri, significantly enhancing its functionality.
The report comes from Mark Gurman, who claims that the new AI-powered Siri will enable iPhone users to control specific app features with their voice. Initially, the feature will be available for Apple's in-house apps only, and the voice assistant will respond to only one command at a time. However, Apple is working to eventually support multiple commands simultaneously.
As an example of how the feature could work, Gurman says that users will be able to tell Siri to capture a photo or summarize a meeting and then send it to a contact. Other tasks Siri will be able to perform include opening documents, moving notes between folders, sending or deleting emails, opening websites in a browser, displaying specific publications in Apple News, and sending links and multimedia files to contacts.
While the vast majority of the AI processing is expected to happen on-device, Apple may eventually offload some features to the cloud to better handle generative AI's massive computing demands, which may exceed the capabilities of the phone's hardware.
To enable the new AI features, Apple engineers reportedly had to rewrite certain parts of Siri's codebase using large language models, the underlying technology for AI software like ChatGPT. Apple has been in talks with OpenAI to integrate its technology into iPhones in the future, but the upcoming Siri features will be powered by Apple's own LLM called Ajax.
In addition to the revamped Siri, Apple is also working on other AI features such as voice memo transcriptions, automated replies to messages and emails, advanced photo editing, and the ability to summarize website content.
The update is expected to be rolled out in 2025, but not all AI features may be available at launch. It is also unclear whether the AI-powered Siri functionality will be extended to third-party apps in the future.