After months of failed efforts to upgrade Siri using advanced artificial intelligence technologies, Apple is considering turning to external help. According to a report by Mark Gurman from Bloomberg, the company has held talks with OpenAI and Anthropic to explore the integration of customized versions of their language models into Apple’s private cloud infrastructure. This is an attempt to accelerate the development of the new "LLM-based Siri," whose release was recently delayed and left out of Apple’s latest developer event — a sign of the disappointment with the results so far.
The change also comes following a management shake-up: After CEO Tim Cook’s trust in the former head of AI, John Giannandrea, deteriorated — Mike Rockwell, who was responsible for the Vision Pro headset project, was appointed to lead the division. Rockwell asked his team to compare the models of OpenAI (ChatGPT), Anthropic (Claude), and Google (Gemini), with Anthropic’s model currently considered the leading candidate.
Competitors are also not standing still: Google has already integrated Gemini into Android devices and Pixel phones, and Samsung uses it under license. Meanwhile, it has been reported that Samsung is nearing an agreement with Perplexity, which already has a collaboration with Motorola. Apple itself recently considered acquiring Perplexity to strengthen its AI initiatives.
Despite turning to external parties, Apple emphasizes that this is only an early stage, and the company is still exploring the possibility of continuing with internal models. One thing is clear — Apple knows it’s falling behind the competition, and it intends to close the gap quickly and decisively.