Apple still wants to integrate AI into Siri, despite Apple Intelligence's poor start

Apple is trying to rethink its approach to artificial intelligence after the unsuccessful launch of the Apple Intelligence platform. The main focus is on a complete reboot of Siri, the voice assistant, which the company wants to transform into a modern assistant based on generative AI, Bloomberg reports. The internal project, known as "LLM Siri", aims to create an assistant that will be truly conversational and capable of deep information analysis.

Journalist Mark Gurman has outlined a number of reasons why Apple’s early efforts failed. First, the company was late in investing in AI, as its executives, including Craig Federighi, were reluctant to invest without a clear vision of the outcome. Apple was also slow to buy expensive GPUs, which meant it couldn’t catch up with its competitors in time. Furthermore, Apple didn’t even have a concrete idea of creating its own AI system until ChatGPT launched in 2022.

Another problem was the unfortunate decision to "hook" new AI features to the old Siri. This approach caused new bugs and did not allow achieving the desired result. The head of AI, John Giannandrea, was also not aggressive enough in promoting initiatives, did not seek significant funding, and believed that users did not want ChatGPT-style chatbots at all.

Faced with the lag, Apple is now changing course. Siri will be completely rebuilt based on a large language model developed by Apple’s Swiss team. The new version will be able to synthesize data from various sources, including the web, similar to Perplexity and other AI search tools. The company also plans to use the iPhone to collect synthetic training data, while preserving user privacy by processing the data directly on the device.

Giannandrea has already been removed from Siri and product development. Apple executives are discussing his potential retirement, but are concerned about losing the people who worked with him. Giannandrea himself, according to Gurman, is glad Siri is no longer his concern.