Apple announced on March 7 that some enhancements to Siri, their voice assistant powered by artificial intelligence, will be delayed until 2026, rather than the initially expected 2025 release. The delay is due to the company needing more time to develop a more personalized Siri with improved contextual awareness and the ability to perform tasks across various apps.
Apple has been working on integrating features into Siri that would allow it to seamlessly navigate between apps and execute user tasks based on personal data stored on Apple devices. These enhancements are part of Apple Intelligence, a suite of AI-driven features unveiled last year, which includes functionalities like rewriting emails and summarizing email content.
As part of these changes, Siri will be capable of accessing information like recommending podcasts or providing flight tracking details from data stored on the user's device. Apple emphasized its commitment to user privacy by mentioning the development of a new cloud computing infrastructure using its own chips.
The company, which handles an impressive 1.5 billion daily user requests through Siri, did not disclose the reasons for the delay. Meanwhile, competitors like Google and Amazon are also continuously enhancing their voice assistants with AI capabilities to keep pace in the market.