Hey, Tom here - this week, we got fresh details on the new Siri, and watched more of Apple’s top AI talent walk out the door.
Could a smarter Siri FINALLY be on the way?
One of the biggest Apple stories this week comes courtesy of Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, who reports that Apple’s long-awaited overhaul of Siri is now firmly in motion. And if the latest details are accurate, we could be getting a brand-new, LLM-powered Siri as early as March 2026.
This isn’t just another voice assistant refresh. Internally dubbed World Knowledge Answers, the new version of Siri is being described as an “answer engine”, designed to handle general search queries by summarising information from across the web. If that sounds familiar, it’s because it is. Apple is clearly looking to compete with the likes of Google’s AI Overviews, ChatGPT, and Perplexity AI, with Siri acting more like a conversational search tool than a basic command-and-control assistant.
Behind the scenes, the new Siri will be made up of three main components:
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A planner, which interprets your voice or typed input and decides how to respond
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A search system, which pulls from both the web and your personal on-device data
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A summariser, which packages the result into a clear, concise answer
That last point is important, because Apple hasn’t abandoned its original vision of a Siri that can understand and respond to your personal context. The first release will include the ability to reference on-screen content and use personal data, like your messages, calendar, and emails, to provide more relevant, tailored responses.
The plan now is to roll Siri out in phases. The first version, expected to arrive in a point release of iOS 26, will focus on the summarisation engine and basic personalisation. The more advanced, “agentic” version of Siri, capable of deeper app control and task automation, is now thought to be coming later in 2026 or even in 2027.
One of the more interesting rumours doing the rounds is the possible inclusion of Google’s Gemini AI model as part of this system. Apple is reportedly considering a hybrid model, where its own Apple Foundation Models are used for private, on-device tasks, while something like Gemini might handle more complex, cloud-based queries. This approach would allow Apple to scale up its AI capabilities while still keeping its privacy-first approach intact.
So why the delay in getting this version of Siri into iOS 18? According to Gurman, and others, Apple’s original plan relied on what was essentially a first-gen architecture, which wasn’t producing results that met the company’s standards. I discussed this here in the newsletter, when I reported that Apple’s software chief Craig Federighi confirmed this during an internal all-hands meeting last month, saying the team had to rebuild Siri from the ground up around large language models.
There’s still a long way to go. But after years of stagnation, and several missed opportunities in the generative AI space, Apple’s new Siri project is shaping up to be a genuinely meaningful step forward. Whether it can catch up to OpenAI, Perplexity, or Google is anyone’s guess.
But for Apple fans, myself included, it might be time to get cautiously optimistic about things finally heading in the right direction.
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Yet more Apple AI talent heads for the door
Of course, you simply can't cover positive Apple news these days, without something negative lurking around the corner, and this week is no different.
There’s been yet another round of departures from Apple’s AI division this week, and this one’s significant enough that even industry insiders are starting to describe it as a “crisis of confidence.” A number of high-level researchers have now exited the company in quick succession, many of them from Apple’s relatively small Foundation Models team, the very group responsible for powering Apple Intelligence and the next generation of Siri.
The most notable name this week is Jian Zhang, who was Apple’s lead AI researcher for robotics. After nearly ten years at Apple, he’s now joined Meta’s Robotics Studio, marking a pretty major loss for Apple’s more experimental AI-driven projects. We know Apple has been quietly working on robotics efforts behind the scenes, including a rumoured tabletop device with a screen that can physically move to track your position. Zhang would almost certainly have been central to that development.
Then there’s the Foundation Models team itself, which is having a particularly rough time. Over the past seven days, three more researchers have left:
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John Peebles has joined OpenAI
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Nan Du has also joined OpenAI
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Zhao Meng has moved to Anthropic
And of course, this comes hot on the heels of Ruoming Pang, who was the head of the Foundation Models team and is now at Meta, reportedly after being offered a compensation package worth more than $200 million. That kind of money is very difficult to turn down, and it’s also something Apple, by all accounts, isn’t willing to match.
So why are so many of Apple’s top AI people leaving?
The most obvious answer is money. Companies like Meta and OpenAI are locked in a full-blown AI talent arms race, offering wild salaries and long-term incentives to try and win over the best researchers in the field. But it’s not just about the money. There are growing reports of low morale within Apple’s AI teams, partly due to ongoing delays and lukewarm public reaction to the features that have launched so far. Internally, many researchers are said to be frustrated with the slow pace and lack of clear direction.
That last point might be the most important. According to recent reports, Apple’s leadership is still debating whether to push forward with building its own models from scratch or shift toward a hybrid approach using external partners like OpenAI, Google, or Anthropic. And that kind of uncertainty is hard to ignore when you’re a world-class researcher who wants to work on cutting-edge projects with the best tools and clearest roadmaps.
The impact on Apple shouldn’t be underestimated. The Foundation Models team isn’t huge, and losing this many people, especially at this level, is a big blow. The same goes for the robotics division, which has only just started to show signs of becoming a real product category.
It’s likely we’ll continue to see Apple lean more heavily on external partnerships for its AI roadmap, especially as pressure mounts to deliver a more competitive Siri and maintain its position as a serious player in the AI space. But that shift in strategy may only further frustrate the people left behind, especially those who signed on to help Apple build something homegrown from the ground up.
Right now, it feels like Apple’s next big AI challenge isn’t just beating the competition. It’s holding onto the people who could help them do it.
Tip of the week
Did you know, that with the new Operating Systems just over a week away, now is the best every time to have a clear out of some of your system junk?
To do this on your iPhone, open Settings, then go to General, then iPhone Storage. Use the prompts that Apple gives you here, or work your way through the list of Apps, deleting anything that you no longer use.
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