Apple rebuilt Siri from the ground up after scrapping initial AI upgrade that 'wasn't delivering'

Apple explains why Siri's major iOS 27 overhaul took so long

iOS 27's new Siri AI is a huge upgrade from the old Siri, but it also took longer than expected to arrive. Here's why the new Siri took so long, per Mike Rockwell. Mike Rockwell says Apple 'tore [Siri] to the ground, rebuilt it from the ground up' for iOS 27 Last week following Apple's WWDC keynote, the company held a Siri and Apple Intelligence-focused tech talk with members of the press. 9to5Mac Editor-in-Chief Chance Miller was there, and shared extensive quotes from the session here from Apple's Craig Federighi and Amar Subramanya. Another participant in the talk was Mike Rockwell, who took on leadership for Siri just last year. Rockwell provided some new context around why Siri AI took longer than hoped to ship. Here's what he said: Last year, we had actually built a first version of this that was sort of incremental on top of the original Siri that added tool calling, and we had it working. But we didn't feel it was really delivering on the vision and the experience that we wanted to do. We also had a design, which required much more extensive changes, and we decided to go with that. So we went back, and we rebuilt Siri from the ground up, literally, tore it to the ground, rebuilt it from the ground up, on top of the incredible models which Amar just told us about. It allowed us to build a profoundly more capable Siri. So it's a Siri that has its own application, it's natively multimodal, it's privacy from the ground up. And it's available across all of your platforms, which is really important to us. So you have it on iPhone, iPad, and Mac, and Watch, Vision Pro, as well as in CarPlay and AirPods. And it's the same Siri across all this. You've got a common experience. Based on Rockwell's comments, it sounds like Apple's original plan for Siri might have delivered some AI upgrades, but it wouldn't have been the full-featured revamp that iOS 27 brings. To achieve Siri AI, Apple instead opted to rebuild Siri "from the ground up." It "tore it to the ground" and rebuilt on top of its new, more modern foundation. What do you make of Rockwell's explanation for Siri AI's release timing? Let us know in the comments.

'We tore it to the ground': Apple says it built Siri AI 'from the ground up', but admits this wasn't the original plan -- a first version of its new voice assistant was ready last year

* Apple has explained why Siri's AI overhaul has taken so long * Initially, the company built an "iterative" version on top of the existing Siri, but this didn't deliver on Apple's vision * So instead Siri was then rebuilt from the ground up Siri's AI overhaul is finally set to arrive later this year, long after it was initially promised -- but Apple has now shed some light on what, exactly, took so long. In a post-WWDC talk attended by 9to5Mac and TechRadar, Mike Rockwell -- the Apple executive who took leadership of the Siri team last year -- explained that, back in 2025, the company managed to build a working version of Siri AI "that was sort of incremental on top of the original Siri" but that "we didn't feel it was really delivering on the vision and the experience that we wanted to do." As a result, the team then "rebuilt Siri from the ground up, literally, tore it to the ground," with the end result being "a profoundly more capable Siri." A necessary shift in strategy So, in other words, it sounds like Apple pivoted away from an initial plan of adding to the existing Siri after realizing this wouldn't cut it with expectant fans, and then started work on the lengthy job of completely rebuilding its digital assistant. Whether this is a satisfying explanation is debatable -- it could be argued that a company with as much talent and experience as Apple should have already known what would be necessary to build a true AI assistant, especially when there were plenty of rival models the company could look to for inspiration. But it does at least go some way to explaining why this whole endeavor has taken quite so long. And while Apple's initial goal of delivering an incremental upgrade might have been shortsighted, the ultimate decision to abandon that and rebuild Siri from the ground up was probably the right one, given how impressive the competition is in this space. Follow TechRadar on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our expert news, reviews, and opinion in your feeds. Make sure to click the Follow button! And of course you can also follow TechRadar on TikTok for news, reviews, unboxings in video form, and get regular updates from us on WhatsApp too.

Apple explains why the big Siri AI revamp took so long - and it actually makes a lot of sense

Apple tore Siri down and rebuilt it on the new Apple Intelligence Foundational Models. No wonder it took forever. Apple has explained why the new Siri AI assistant - powered by Google's Gemini - took so long to come to fruition. The company had received serious criticism for the long delays and even accusations it had demonstrated features that hadn't yet been realised beyond the concept stage. However, the two year delay from the original announcement at WWDC 2024 to the relaunch at WWDC can be partially explained by the revelation Apple stopped trying to retrofit existing Siri and instead admitted the need to build a replacement from the ground up. During a press roundtable at WWDC Mike Rockwell, who became the leader of the Siri platform in 2025, said the initial changes Apple had made "wasn't delivering on the vision" so it was torn down and rebuilt atop the new Apple Intelligence Foundational Models that were previously announced. During the roundtable attended by 9to5Mac, Rockwell said: "Last year, we had actually built a first version of this that was sort of incremental on top of the original Siri that added tool calling, and we had it working. But we didn't feel it was really delivering on the vision and the experience that we wanted to do. We also had a design, which required much more extensive changes, and we decided to go with that. "So we went back, and we rebuilt Siri from the ground up, literally, tore it to the ground, rebuilt it from the ground up, on top of the incredible models which Amar [Subramanya] just told us about. It allowed us to build a profoundly more capable Siri. So it's a Siri that has its own application, it's natively multimodal, it's privacy from the ground up. "And it's available across all of your platforms, which is really important to us. So you have it on iPhone, iPad, and Mac, and Watch, Vision Pro, as well as in CarPlay and AirPods. And it's the same Siri across all this. You've got a common experience." Now Apple is finally set to deliver on the vision for the new Siri that includes deeply contextual information, on-screen awareness, interaction with all of your key apps and much, much more. We're excited to give it a try.