Apple is exploring the use of AI technology from Anthropic PBC or OpenAI for a new Siri version, tacitly admitting its in-house AI models have underperformed. This potential blockbuster shift aims to revive Apple’s struggling AI efforts.
Mark Gurman for Bloomberg News:
The iPhone maker has talked with both companies about using their large language models for Siri, according to people familiar with the discussions. It has asked them to train versions of their models that could run on Apple’s cloud infrastructure for testing, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing private deliberations.
If Apple ultimately moves forward, it would represent a monumental reversal. The company currently powers most of its AI features with homegrown technology that it calls Apple Foundation Models and had been planning a new version of its voice assistant that runs on that technology for 2026.
A switch to Anthropic’s Claude or OpenAI’s ChatGPT models for Siri would be an acknowledgment that the company is struggling to compete in generative AI — the most important new technology in decades. Apple already allows ChatGPT to answer web-based search queries in Siri, but the assistant itself is powered by Apple.
Apple’s investigation into third-party models is at an early stage, and the company hasn’t made a final decision on using them, the people said. A competing project internally dubbed LLM Siri that uses in-house models remains in active development…
People with knowledge of Apple’s AI team say it is operating with a high degree of uncertainty and a lack of clarity, with executives still poring over a number of possible directions. Apple has already approved a multibillion dollar budget for 2026 for running its own models via the cloud but its plans for beyond that remain murky.
MacDailyNews Take: Mr. Market is reacting positively to this report (AAPL is up over 2% on the news) that Apple finally seems to be recognizing that it missed GenAI badly and is looking to work with those who didn’t to finally make Siri useful outside of rigid constraints.
This buys Apple time to build out its AI infrastructure and work on its homegrown models, where it can eventually, hopefully, one day catch up. Then, just plug in the Apple model, replacing the third-parties, and voila, mistake erased!
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