One of the most surprising aspects of Apple’s “awe-dropping” Fall launch event for the iPhone 17 series was AI. The company barely talked about it, or any new enhancements that are coming to Apple Intelligence or Siri. But it seems a major rival (and partner) is ready to jump on the opportunity with a radical idea and fix the Siri experience.
What’s the plan?
OpenAI co-founder and chief, Sam Altman, was musing on Twitter about how the new slate of Apple smartphones seemed like a worthy upgrade that he has “really wanted.” Responding to his post, another AI company executive asked him to get Siri replaced with ChatGPT’s conversational Voice mode.
Altman expressed enthusiasm over the suggestion, adding that he was supportive of the “great idea.” To recall, OpenAI is already an exclusive Apple partner and supplies the underlying AI tech that powers some of the core Apple Intelligence features, such as Writing Tools, and also works alongside Siri.
Moroever, when you ask Siri a question that it can’t handle, the question is handed off to ChatGPT. These features are enabled using a ChatGPT Extensions system, which users can choose to disable from within the Settings app.
The future of Siri could go beyond ChatGPT
Apple’s dependence on ChatGPT to fix the functional gaps of Siri could undergo a major change next year. The company’s planned “AI brain transplant” will reportedly pave the way for launching “LLM Siri,” a smarter and more conversational version with a similar tech foundation as ChatGPT and Gemini.
Interestingly, the plans could change if Apple’s own work with AI doesn’t catch up. The company has reportedly asked Anthropic and OpenAI to train test versions of Claude and ChatGPT, respectively, that will run on Apple’s own cloud infrastructure and power the next-gen Siri experience.
Recently, it appears that Google’s Gemini has also entered the negotiations. “The iPhone maker recently approached Alphabet Inc.’s Google to explore building a custom AI model that would serve as the foundation of the new Siri next year,” reports Bloomberg.
