Apple's AI Struggles Continue: Concerns Grow Over New Siri's Performance in iOS 26.4

It's getting harder to believe Apple can deliver on the new Siri

For a very long time, I urged patience with Apple's efforts to turn Siri into a truly intelligent assistant. Back in 2023, I argued that the stakes were higher for Siri than for primarily text-based AI systems like ChatGPT. I've also said that Apple's commitment to privacy poses a far greater challenge for the company's AI efforts, and that the payoff would be worth it. But it's gotten harder and harder to maintain this position, and the latest report certainly doesn't help ... Apple has very rarely tried to be first with anything. With the vast majority of new technologies, it has aimed to be the best rather than the first. It's been willing to sit back and watch others make mistakes, to learn from those, and to quietly beaver away in the background on its own version. I've long argued that we should allow Apple to do the same in the case of AI. That doesn't mean I've given the company a free pass, or that I haven't been personally frustrated by just how dumb Siri has been for just so long: I've been expressing my views about this for a very long time. Two and a half years ago, I pointed to the fact that generative AI systems of that time were a lot dumber than they appeared to be, and that because Siri operated through spoken responses, Apple needed a more cautious approach. When a Google search shows you conventional results next to a chat window answering the same question, it's very easy for the company to include prominent warnings that the chat answer may not be accurate. But Siri is designed to provide spoken answers to verbal questions. Even more annoying than Siri 'answering' a question with "Here's what I found on the web," would be "Here's a lengthy answer which you first have to listen to, then I'll note that it may not be correct, and recommend that you search the web." A year ago, I observed that AI progress is not linear, and that if the company really was as far behind as it appeared to be at the time, that didn't mean it couldn't rapidly catch up. I also argued that privacy was something worth waiting for. By this year, however, it was getting harder and harder to retain patience with Apple's glacial progress. Apple recently had to admit that plans for three new Siri features are "going to take us longer than we thought" - with no real explanation, and no new delivery date. As we noted at the time, these are the very features which promise to make Siri truly intelligent. I offered a couple of suggestions for ways in which Apple could mitigate the delays, but noted that the only real way out of this mess is if conversational Siri turns out to be spectacularly good. That length of delay dramatically increases expectations of what 2027 Siri needs to be. Just think about what ChatGPT and Claude and Gemini and Llama and DeepSeek will be able to do by then! Think about Amazon's new conversational Alexa, and what that will be capable of with another two years of development, using all of the data the company has amassed about the requests people are making of it. Siri will no longer be judged against the capabilities of today's chatbots, it will be judged against the ones we'll have two years from now. That's going to be a phenomenally high bar, and Apple really needs to reach it. The latest report certainly doesn't help. Bloomberg claims that Apple employees who've had the chance to test the new Siri are concerned about its performance. There are concerns from people testing iOS 26.4 -- the OS version slated to include the new Siri -- about the voice assistant's performance. Far from being spectacularly better, as it now needs to be, it very much sounds like it doesn't even compare with today's competitors. When I asked you guys whether we should be able to choose a Siri alternative on our Apple devices, the overwhelming majority of you said yes. It's honestly now feeling like this may be the only viable solution for Apple in the next year or two at least. What's your take? Have you now run out of patience, or do you still believe that Apple can and will deliver? Please share your thoughts in the comments.

The big Apple Intelligence upgrade to Siri is still on the way, but Apple's own testers are raising the alarm

iOS 26 will bring a big Siri update in the new year -- but there's cause for concern iOS 26 should finally deliver Apple's long-promised Siri upgrade in the new year, but Bloomberg's Mark Gurman claims things are still looking grim in Cupertino for this update. This update, informally known as "Siri 2.0," has been promised since the original Apple Intelligence announcement in the summer of 2024. After delays, these features have been tipped to finally arrive in iOS 26.4, expected to be made available in spring 2026. However, as Gurman says in his latest Power On newsletter: "Already, there are concerns from people testing iOS 26.4 -- the OS version slated to include the new Siri -- about the voice assistant's performance." We aren't told the precise reasons for these unnamed testers' fears, which makes it hard to gauge how serious these feelings are. But it's not what you want to hear about an already-troubled feature as its debut approaches. Apple hasn't had an easy time with AI features, even if the currently available Apple Intelligence features can perform well enough. There's been discontent from users as well as from within the company about how several of the headline features, such as the Siri revamp, still aren't present. The all-new Siri is meant to make use of a new Personal Context system to draw key details from your apps, and have the ability to complete in-app tasks while being aware of what's on screen. This was first meant to launch in iOS 18.4 earlier this year, but Apple chose to delay it for a further year to guarantee the features met its expected standards. This only piles on top of previous issues with existing features, like notification summaries inaccurately portraying major news events. While we're approaching the end of 2025, iOS 26.4 isn't going to land until well into 2026. There's still time for Apple to turn things around, although the longer it takes to work on the new Siri, the further ahead its Android phone competition will get. If you're curious about new iPhone features you can actually use right now, you can take a look at what's in the iOS 26.1 beta, the next iOS update in the pipeline.

Concerns grow over 'new' Siri's performance, as Apple's AI struggles continue

iOS 26.4 was supposed to bring a new dawn for Siri, but internal testers are reportedly worried. Apple made its belated entry to the AI market last year, with its Apple Intelligence platform limping out of the starting gate a month and a half after the iPhone 16. Even then, the software was incomplete and missing several features that appeared in iPhone 16 advertising. And one of these, contextually aware Siri, has still not made its debut a year later. There have been multiple setbacks and delays along the way, but the so-called "new" Siri, with improved accuracy and an expanded feature set powered by AI, was finally expected to arrive with the rollout of iOS 26.4 around March next year. Even that now appears optimistic, however, with the news that internal testers are raising concerns about the software's performance. In the latest edition of his Power On newsletter, Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman discusses the troubling exodus of AI talent from Apple Park, noting that at this point, the company's AI woes are having more impact on its own staff than on customer interest in its products. (The iPhone 17, he notes, appears to be selling well, despite Apple Intelligence's shortcomings.) And he predicts the spate of resignations will only get worse next year if iOS 26.4 can't turn things around. "I strongly believe there will be more senior members of the company's AI ranks hitting the exits soon, especially if the new Siri coming in the spring falls flat," Gurman writes. "Already, there are concerns from people testing iOS 26.4-the OS version slated to include the new Siri -- about the voice assistant's performance." Gurman doesn't give any details about these concerns. Siri's shortcomings can currently be split into two categories: it can't do as many things as other voice assistants, and it's less accurate when doing them. The new Siri is supposed to tackle both categories, and if it fails to achieve that, we'd call that concerning performance. Perhaps the new Siri is still making comprehension errors; perhaps it still can't handle contextual conversation. But it's so far behind at the moment that it doesn't really matter what's going wrong, because it needs to get everything right to catch up. This far ahead of launch (we're only on iOS 26.0.1 at present, with iOS 26.1 in the beta testing phase), work on 26.4 is purely internal, and there's plenty of time to fix the problems that have been picked up. It's just hard to be optimistic after all the delays Apple's AI division has already suffered. And with some of Apple's most talented employees headed for the exit door, it would be naive to assume that everything will be sorted in time for the spring.

AppleInsider.com

Apple's ability to pull off its long-promised overhaul of Siri is being questioned, with a report claiming the digital assistant isn't working as well as it should for a future iOS 26 update. The iOS 18 introduction of Apple Intelligence was supposed to also bring in some much-needed upgrades to Siri. However, it seems that Apple's Siri problems may still persist long into the lifecycle of iOS 26. According to sources of Mark Gurman in Sunday's "Power On" newsletter for Bloomberg, testers of iOS 26.4 are already feeling uneasy about Siri. There are apparently "concerns" from the testers over the digital assistant's performance. The iOS 26.4 update is thought to be the one where Siri finally gets its overhaul. That updated is anticipated to arrive in the spring of 2026, according to the report. The spring 2026 timeframe is a little early, but mostly tallies up with macOS Tahoe leaks provided to AppleInsider. Mac hardware scheduling and macOS 26 updates in the leak puts a 26.4 release in the summer, though this could be early in the season enough to border with late spring. Gurman doesn't go into details about the concerns, other than it being about performance and for the iOS 26.4 update. Continued Siri strain The Siri saga has seen Apple undergo considerable restructuring of teams working on AI, due to the continued fumbling. This has led to Apple seeking a replacement of John Giannandrea to lead AI within the company, which it is still searching for. Robby Walker, a senior AI executive, was also linked to the delays in Siri. In September, it was reported he would be departing Apple sometime in October. Apple has also had to deal with a drain in talent. AI engineers have been tempted away to competitors such as Meta by the promise of massive levels of compensation. The affair has also exposed Apple to legal fallout, with lawsuits claiming Apple was misleading shareholders before confirming Siri was delayed. Despite this, Apple is still working to make AI a much better prospect for iPhone users. There have been references to Model Context Protocol in iOS 26.1, indicating that Apple is considering a system to simplify AI data access. It has also been working on its own ChatGPT-like iPhone app, which could eventually become the key to creating the new Siri. However, aside from some reported "concerns" by testers, no-one truly knows how far along Apple truly is, and how long we have to wait for Siri to finally get that upward bump.

Apple employees have 'concerns' over Siri performance in early iOS 26.4 builds: report - 9to5Mac

Early next year, Apple is set to debut its new AI-infused Siri as part of iOS 26.4 - after well over a year of delays. However, despite all of the additional time the company had to rethink its approach, some Apple engineers testing the software reportedly have concerns as it stands today. It's worth noting that we're still around 6 months from the public release of the software. Things could easily improve, and ideally - they would. In today's Power On newsletter, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reported the following: I strongly believe there will be more senior members of the company's AI ranks hitting the exits soon, especially if the new Siri coming in the spring falls flat. Already, there are concerns from people testing iOS 26.4 -- the OS version slated to include the new Siri -- about the voice assistant's performance. Based on this early internal version, things aren't sounding too promising. It's no secret that Apple hasn't had a great time in the AI race. After loads of external pressure, Apple finally leaned into the AI bubble at WWDC24, where the company announced Apple Intelligence - a suite of AI-powered features running locally on your Apple devices. The majority of the companies smaller announcements, like Clean Up in Photos, Genmoji, and ChatGPT in Siri did ship throughout the course of the iOS 18 release cycle. However, one major thing failed to debut during the iOS 18 release cycle: the all-new Siri. Apple announced three key Siri upgrades - personal context, on screen awareness, and the ability to take action in apps. Essentially, if all went Apple's way, Siri would've been a true all-encompassing digital assistant, that both knew you and could act on behalf of you. That failed to come to fruition, though. People anticipated that this all-new Siri would launch by the springtime, in iOS 18.4 or iOS 18.5. Then, it never shipped in betas. Apple subsequently announced that the feature would be delayed by about a year, as it didn't meet the company's quality standards. During an interview after WWDC25, software chief Craig Federighi commented that they needed time to rearchitect Siri, and that it should be on track to launch in 2026. Reportedly, Apple has two teams working on different approaches for an all-new Siri. One would be powered by on-device models, and the other would be powered by Google Gemini running on Private Cloud Compute. It was initially referred to as a 'bake-off.' We don't quite know which model powers this early version of iOS 26.4 Siri, but if I were to guess, it's probably utilizing Apple's on device models. Apple hasn't exactly had the best time attracting AI talent. I'm sure it isn't Apple's primary plan to simply announce that they failed to develop their own AI-infused Siri, and they instead need to rely on Gemini. However, based on early concerns, it's plausible that ends up being the case.

Apple Employees Don't Trust the New Siri Coming in iOS 26.4 - Phandroid

Apple employees are sounding alarms about the revamped Siri scheduled for iOS 26.4 next spring, according to internal reports. According to a report in Mark Gurman's Power On newsletter, despite over a year of delays meant to perfect the AI-powered assistant, staff testers and engineers say the current version feels inconsistent and unprepared for public release. The concerns reveal deeper problems at Apple beyond just buggy software, including leadership turnover, talent loss, and internal teams competing against each other with different AI approaches. Apple is reportedly running an internal "bake-off" between two competing Siri models. One team focuses on Apple's privacy-first, on-device AI technology. The other explores Google's Gemini AI through private cloud computing. This split approach shows Apple hasn't decided which direction to take with its digital assistant, even as the spring 2026 launch date approaches. The competition between teams might sound like healthy innovation, but it's actually causing confusion and delays. Engineers don't know which version will ship, making it difficult to optimize performance or fix bugs consistently. Meanwhile, competitors like Google Assistant and Alexa have unified strategies that let them move faster with AI improvements. This isn't the first time Apple has considered partnering with Google for AI features, showing the company's ongoing struggle to match competitors. Apple has lost significant AI talent over the past year, with several senior executives involved in Siri development leaving the company. The remaining leadership faces ongoing scrutiny about whether they can deliver on Apple's ambitious AI promises. Talent turnover doesn't just mean empty desks, it means lost institutional knowledge, broken workflows, and teams that need time to rebuild trust and momentum. This brain drain puts Apple in a tough spot. The company needs world-class AI engineers to compete with OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic, but those engineers have options. Many prefer working at AI-focused companies where they can push boundaries without Apple's strict privacy constraints and slow decision-making processes. The irony is that Apple's personalized Siri features were already delayed to 2026 after quality issues, and now employee concerns suggest even that timeline might be optimistic. Apple's commitment to on-device AI processing creates technical challenges competitors don't face. While Google and Amazon can tap unlimited cloud computing power for their assistants, Apple insists on running most AI features directly on your iPhone. That approach protects privacy but demands far more engineering sophistication to achieve similar results with limited device resources. The new Siri was supposed to offer personal context awareness, on-screen understanding, and the ability to take actions within apps. These features require understanding what you're doing, remembering your preferences, and executing complex tasks, all while respecting Apple's privacy standards. It's a much tougher problem to solve than simply connecting to powerful servers. Despite promises that Siri would get a massive AI overhaul, the reality has proven far more complicated than Apple anticipated. CEO Tim Cook said during Apple's July 2025 earnings call that the company is "making good progress on a more personalized Siri" and expects to release the features "next year," according to MacRumors. However, employee concerns suggest the spring 2026 release might arrive incomplete or get delayed again. For iPhone users, this means continuing to live with a digital assistant that lags behind competitors in basic tasks like setting multiple timers, understanding follow-up questions, or integrating with third-party apps smoothly. Apple's cautious approach aims to avoid public embarrassment, but it risks making Siri irrelevant. Users already mock Siri's limitations compared to ChatGPT or Google Assistant. Every delay gives competitors more time to improve their AI assistants while Apple falls further behind user expectations. The company that once defined mobile computing now struggles to deliver a voice assistant that feels modern. The internal chaos at Apple reveals a company caught between its privacy principles and the demands of cutting-edge AI. Engineers working on Siri iOS 26.4 know they're building something that might not be ready, and that uncertainty is exactly what has them worried.

Some Apple Engineers Voice Concerns About The Performance Of The New AI-Powered Siri In Early Builds Of iOS 26.4

Apple's competitiveness in the wider sphere of consumer tech hinges on its ongoing efforts to imbue utilitarian, AI-driven features to its bespoke voice assistant, Siri. Yet, as per some anecdotes that are now leaking out of its labyrinthine halls, Apple's Siri revamp is facing ongoing performance shortfalls. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman is out with another scoop today, this time focusing on Apple's continuing struggles to revamp Siri. According to Gurman, some Apple engineers are now concerned about the performance of the new Siri, which is expected to ship with the iOS 26.4 build in the spring of 2026. While Gurman does not cite any specific concern around the revamped Siri, we know from Bloomberg's reporting back in August that Apple engineers were struggling to ensure that Siri performed adequately across apps, and in critical scenarios such as banking. Bear in mind that Apple has been working to introduce the following handy features in its upcoming iOS 26.4 build: Today's reporting provides a possible motive behind the sudden departure of Ke Yang, who was appointed the head of Apple's Answers, Knowledge and Information (AKI) team only weeks earlier, and is now reportedly leaving for a lucrative stint at Meta Platforms Inc. Do note that the AKI team has been working on equipping Apple's bespoke voice assistant, Siri, with the ability to pull user-requested information directly from the web, akin to what OpenAI's LLMs now do as a matter of routine. Our readers would remember that Apple had blamed Siri's V1 architecture for its performance shortfalls a few months back, with Craig Federighi, Apple's Senior Vice President of Software Engineering, pinning the company's AI hopes on the voice assistant's completely revamped V2 architecture: "We found that the limitations of the V1 architecture weren't getting us to the quality level that we knew our customers needed and expected...if we tried to push that out in the state it was going to be in, it would not meet our customer expectations or Apple standards and we had to move to the V2 architecture." Apparently, Siri's V2 architecture is also suffering from its share of teething problems, judging by Gurman's reporting today.

You know, I'm starting to think Apple's Siri is actually cursed

Poor old Siri. Apple's infamous voice assistant has had a bumpy few years, with competitors like Amazon's Alexa and Google Assistant racing ahead. And then came the advent of AI, threatening to further relegate Siri to irrelevance. Last year, Apple responded to the threat with big talk. The headline of the company's Apple Intelligence announcements was a new and improved Siri - but over a year later she remains missing in action. Many (including internally at Apple) have accused the brand of botching its AI roll-out - but rumour has it the long-awaited update will finally arrive with iOS 26.4 next year. But new reports suggest Apple still hasn't manage to stick the landing. According to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, some of Apple's software engineers have "concerns" about the overhauled Siri's performance. Gurman doesn't go into more detail, but the suggestion that Siri still isn't performing properly is enough to set alarm bells ringing. Apple's Siri debacle is embarrassing for the company for a couple of reasons. Firstly, those false promises about the arrival of the new tech last year were uncharacteristically misleading, demonstrating the danger of companies advertising features that are due to arrive at some point in the future rather than with the hardware itself. And then there's the fact that even before the broken AI promises, Siri was lagging behind. Ever asked a question only to be met with a response of "I'm sorry, I don't understand"? Of course you have. Time will tell whether those rumoured concerns turn out to be unfounded or otherwise. But one thing's for sure; if Apple fails to deliver the goods with Siri yet again, it's going to be a particularly bad look for the company.