Apple's Siri AI Upgrade Faces Significant Delays, Causing Internal Turmoil

Apple's Siri Chief Calls AI Delays Ugly and Embarrassing, Promises Fixes

Apple Inc.'s top executive overseeing its Siri virtual assistant told staff that delays to key features have been ugly and embarrassing, and a decision to publicly promote the technology before it was ready made matters worse. Robby Walker, who serves as a senior director at Apple, delivered the stark comments during an all-hands meeting for the Siri division, saying that the team was facing a bad period. Walker also said that it's unclear when the enhancements will actually launch, according to people with knowledge of the matter, who asked not to be identified because the gathering was private.

Apple exec candidly discusses Siri struggles including AI delays and embarrassing setbacks

Facepalm: Apple's much-delayed AI Siri features are still in limbo. The company aims to implement the Siri overhaul in iOS 19 this fall, but other commitments could push it into 2026. Cupertino has consistently maintained a slower pace than competitors, aiming for quality rather than being first. Apple's struggles with artificial intelligence are evident when you look at the challenges Siri is facing. In a candid address to the Siri team, Robby Walker, a senior director at Apple, acknowledged that delays to key features have been both "ugly" and "embarrassing." The decision to publicly showcase these features before they were ready exacerbated the situation, anonymous sources revealed to Bloomberg. "This was not one of these situations where we get to show people our plan after it's done," Walker told the team at a private gathering. "We showed people before." The features in question, unveiled at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference last June, are designed to enhance Siri's capabilities by leveraging user data and improving app control. However, when Apple demonstrated these features using a video mock-up, it only had a barely working prototype. The goal was to make Siri respond to queries and analyze content more effectively, but it currently functions correctly about 60 to 80 percent of the time. Walker praised the team for developing "incredibly impressive" features but admitted that the current state of the technology is not ready for public release. "These are not quite ready to go to the general public, even though our competitors might have launched them in this state or worse," he said. The decision to delay was driven by quality concerns, with software chief Craig Federighi expressing similar reservations about the technology's readiness. Federighi had voiced concerns to other senior executives that the features weren't working as advertised, ultimately prompting the decision to delay. The delay significantly impacts Apple's broader AI strategy, Apple Intelligence. The company initially planned to include these features in iOS 18.5 but now aims to roll them out with iOS 19. Walker noted that while Apple intends to implement them in iOS 19, expected to launch this fall, shifting priorities could push the release further. As Apple balances multiple commitments, it may need to reassess trade-offs. Despite the challenges, Walker expressed optimism about the future of Siri, comparing the effort to a long-distance swim. "We swam hundreds of miles - we set a Guinness Book for World Records for swimming distance - but we still didn't swim to Hawaii," he said, referring to the team's progress and the distance it still has to cover to meet their goal. Apple is not planning immediate executive changes over the AI crisis. However, it is considering "management adjustments." The company has already brought in Kim Vorrath, a veteran executive known for fixing projects, to assist the team. "Intense personal accountability" is shared among top executives, including John Giannandrea, the head of AI at Apple, and Craig Federighi. In the meantime, Apple continues enhancing Siri's capabilities, including a Type-to-Siri interface and improved product knowledge. The company is also planning to expand Apple Intelligence into several new languages and is working with partners like Alibaba and Baidu to enable features for China. However, the road ahead remains challenging, with significant technical hurdles to bring Siri to what Apple considers a competitive level. The company's upgrade roadmap extends into 2027, focusing on making Siri more conversational, allowing it to better compete with other AI chatbots. Walker noted that this path will require a new infrastructure.

Apple Overpromised on AI Siri and Its Staff Is Not Happy About it

Last week, in a classic Friday news dump, Apple made the deeply embarrassing announcement that it would be delaying plans to infuse its voice assistant Siri with artificial intelligence-powered capabilities. But that announcement didn't just send its stock price tumbling. According to a new report from Bloomberg, it's also caused morale within its Siri team to spiral, too. Per the inside account of Apple's issues, Robby Walker, a senior director in Apple's Siri division, held an all-hands meeting for the team and acknowledged that things were...not great. He acknowledged that team members might feel angry, embarrassed, and burned out by the whole situation. "You might have co-workers or friends or family asking you what happened, and it doesn't feel good," he reportedly said, according to Bloomberg. What also doesn't feel good is the apparent fact that Apple's marketing kinda left the Siri folks hanging out to dry. They started running ads promoting the features that would be available in the suped-up Siri last year, promising that it'd arrive by June of this year. Those features were supposed to be part of the broader suite of Apple Intelligence offerings -- one of the primary selling points of the iPhone 16, which otherwise didn't offer a whole lot of upgrades. But now those aren't coming. In fact, it seems there's no clear timeline for when they actually will arrive. Walker reportedly told the team that while Apple would like for their new intelligence features to roll out along with the launch of iOS 19, expected to be available this summer, it "doesn't mean that we're shipping then." Currently, Bloomberg reports that the in-progress Siri feature only works the way it's supposed to between two-thirds to 80% of the time -- which both sounds woefully insufficient and, if you have any experience with Siri, is about in line with how well it already works. While missing a deadline is painful and embarrassing, maybe the Siri team should take solace in the fact that most people probably aren't missing those promised features all that much. A December 2024 survey from trade journal SellCell found that 73% of iPhone owners found the company's new AI features to "add little to no value." That said, voice assistants like Siri kinda seem like a no-brainer application for artificial intelligence. It's surprising that it's taken so long for companies to get around to actually integrating it. Apple isn't alone in this problem. It took until last month for Amazon to announce AI-powered features for its Alexa voice assistant, and even those are getting slow-rolled as the company introduces them to a limited selection of devices for the time being. For all the hype AI generates, it seems like finding ways to get consumers to use it is harder than it may seem.

Apple's AI Problem Escalates With Major Executive Shakeup

The hardware giant is dealing with all this drama because it didn't prioritize Siri long ago. Apple is shaking up its executive roster as the company desperately seeks to make an AI product that works. According to Bloomberg, John Giannandrea, senior vice president of Machine Learning and AI Strategy, will no longer be in charge of Apple's Siri and AI efforts. After months of jokes and criticism the Apple Intelligence boondoggle has reached crisis point. If you've been paying attention to Apple lately, you know there is a round of blame game happening at headquarters. It's only revealed through expertly sourced reports and a fluctuating stock as each new headline breaks through. All the reports (and a surprise leaked internal meeting) suggest Apple CEO Tim Cook has been on a hunt for why the company doesn't yet have a competitive product in the AI space. Cook is now making changes that should turn things around for Siri, Apple Intelligence, and the rest of Apple's AI efforts. Silicon Valley tech giants moving roles around is definitely inside baseball, but big changes at Apple are usually learned through press releases, not leaked meetings. The very public castigating of the Apple's AI program suggests the company might be coming around to needing AI incorporated as more than a splashy and poorly working marketing move for investors. The company already admitted it was scaling back on its promise of a full-fledged Siri with Apple Intelligence. Now, Mike Rockwell, the former head of Vision Pro development, is being moved in as the overseer of all things Siri and AI. It's unclear if Giannandrea is totally out. He came to Apple from Alphabet, whee he ran oversaw some of Google's most critical and advanced AI work. So the guy knows AI better than most people, but Rockwell just shipped a product that wasn't a best seller, but was expertly crafted and implemented and required working across both hardware and software. So as a project leader he may be more affective. He'll will work under Craig Federighi, the ample-haired senior vice president of software engineering, who is in charge of iOS, iPad OS, and macOS. Other staff are being shuffled between groups to get the department back on a trajectory too. What is described in the report sounds like chaos, but a shake up, or at least the admission of problems, should have happened a while ago. Critics, users and even Rockwell himself were already worried Siri wasn't good enough. Now Apple is betting on the technical prowess of Rockwell, the new department head, to help revive the waning Siri and Apple Intelligence and possibly even integrate it into more of the ecosystem. He also has a track record of being vocal about Siri's shortcomings, which might mean there's already a vision of how to proceed. And that's desperately needed. The Apple Intelligence rollout has been deeply flawed, with the currently available stuff being real table stakes for an AI and the actual cool big promises now delayed indefinitely. I'd like to see if they can push anything forward this year. There must be some trick that Siri can do that will inspire us all in its AI future by WWDC 2025. But if Apple is wise it will go back to doing what it does best, focus on pushing out something polished instead of rushing it out because a hype cycle demanded it.

Apple Knows That Its Misleading AI Ads Are "Embarrassing" and "Ugly"

Apple reportedly held an all-hands meeting with its Siri team to discuss the "embarrassing" and "ugly" delay of AI-enhanced functionality. Details from the meeting show that this AI voice assistant functionality, which has been heavily advertised through the iPhone 16 marketing campaign, may arrive even later than expected. Anonymous sources within Apple described the meeting to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, an Apple analyst and fairly reliable leaker. According to Gurman, Apple senior director Robby Walker used the meeting to lay out the realities of the AI Siri delay and provide some reassurance for the Siri team. Walker acknowledged that unfinished Siri AI capabilities "were included in a series of marketing campaigns and TV commercials starting last year," an unusual move that made Apple's delay particularly "ugly." Additionally, Walker told employees that AI Siri enhancements may not be finalized in time for an iOS 19.X release. The company hopes to nail a rollout before the fall of 2026, but "the company has several more priorities in development, and trade-offs will need to be made." If Siri enhancements are pushed to iOS 20, then they won't arrive until September 2026 at the earliest. "To make matters worse, Apple's marketing communications department wanted to promote the enhancements. Despite not being ready, the capabilities were included in a series of marketing campaigns and TV commercials starting last year ... This was not one of these situations where we get to show people our plan after it's done. We showed people before." As for why the Apple Intelligence upgrade was delayed -- well, take a guess. Walker reportedly told employees that AI Siri is unfinished and only works properly 80% of the time (which, to be fair, is a decent batting average for an AI product). There also appears to be some panicamong Apple's senior leadership because existing AI features don't work as advertised -- this panic was not discussed during the all-hands Siri meeting, though it likely influenced the content of the discussion. Robby Walker purportedly said that "these [AI features] are not quite ready to go to the general public, even though our competitors might have launched them in this state or worse." Suffice to say, Apple has failed to establish itself as a leader in AI. The company is slow to introduce new features and is overly-reliant on third parties, specifically OpenAI. Its implementation of AI functionality is generally quite poor, too. Generative text and other popular features are tucked in odd places, while highly-visible features like Notification Summaries are often hilariously unreliable (or, in some cases, horrifyingly misinformative). Related Forget the Haters, Don't Be Afraid to Buy the Cheapest iPad Comparison is the thief of joy. Posts 5 Still, Robby Walker sees value in AI functionality and appears to be proud of the Siri team's progress. He reportedly told employees that they should be proud of their "incredible progress" He showed demos of AI Siri controlling apps, adding attachments to an email, and hunting down a driver's license number from an old photo. He also acknowledged that the Siri team may feel "angry, disappointed, burned out, and embarrassed" because of the pressures created by misguided marketing. Apple share prices declined by 10% in the week following the AI Siri delay. That said, we're in the middle of a broad stock market downturn due to tariffs and political unpredictability, so the true impact of the Siri delay on Apple's market value is unclear. Rumors of an upcoming iOS and macOS redesign, which were relayed to Apple analysts by internal sources just a few days after the AI Siri delay, may have also provided some harm reduction for Apple (though I doubt that Apple intentionally leaked this info, it seems that the company's employees are just in a leaky mood). To reiterate, Apple says that its AI-enhanced Siri voice assistant will arrive sometime in 2026. Reports indicate that Apple does not have an internal deadline for this release. If the company fails to roll out the upgraded Siri in an iOS 19.X update, then a September 2026 release alongside iOS 20 is likely. Source: Mark Gurman (Bloomberg)

Apple exec slams 'ugly and embarrassing' Siri delays in all-hands meeting - 9to5Mac

We're one week removed from Apple's decision to indefinitely delay the "more personalized" version of Siri that was first announced at WWDC 2024, and the blowback hasn't let up. Now, Bloomberg has the details from an all-hands meeting for the Siri division inside Apple, where the Apple Intelligence delays were panned as "ugly" and "embarrassing." The meeting was led by Robby Walker, a senior director of "Siri and Information Intelligence" at Apple. Walker has been at Apple since 2013, working across Siri technologies. During the meeting, Walker reportedly emphasized that "it's unclear" when the promised Siri features will launch. This includes Siri with personal context, in-app actions, and on-screen awareness. Apple's goal remains to ship these features at some point in the iOS 19, but Walker said "it doesn't mean that we're shipping then." In its current form, the new Siri features only work properly "up to two-thirds to 80% of the time," Bloomberg reports: "We have other commitments across Apple to other projects," Walker said, citing new software and hardware initiatives. "We want to keep our commitments to those, and we understand those are now potentially more timeline-urgent than the features that have been deferred." He said decisions on timing will be made on a "case-by-case basis" as work progresses on products planned for next year. "Customers are not expecting only these new features but they also want a more fully rounded-out Siri," he said. "We're going to ship these features and more as soon as they are ready." As far as accountability is concerned, Walker told staffers that there is "intense personal accountability" shared by John Giannandrea, Apple's Senior Vice President of Machine Learning and AI Strategy, and software boss Craig Federighi. Bloomberg reports that Apple "doesn't plan to immediately fire any top executives over the AI crisis." It is, however, planning "management adjustments" in response to the problems, including "moving more senior executives under Giannandrea to assist with a turnaround effort." Walker also called out Apple's marketing department's decision to promote these features even though they weren't ready. This decision "[made] matters worse," according to Walker. But when Apple demonstrated the features at WWDC using a video mock-up, it only had a barely working prototype, Bloomberg has reported. Walker told staff in the meeting that the delays were especially "ugly" because Apple had already showed off the features publicly. "This was not one of these situations where we get to show people our plan after it's done," he said. "We showed people before." Despite the struggles, Walker also praised the team for the "incredibly impressive" features and doubled down on the goal of shipping "the world's greatest virtual assistant." He told staff they should "feel really proud of innovative work" they've done up to this point. Walker defended his Siri group, telling them that they should be proud. Employees poured their "hearts and souls into this thing," he said. "I saw so many people giving everything they had in order to make this happen and to make incredible progress together." But Apple wants to maintain a high bar and only deliver the features when they're polished, he said. "These are not quite ready to go to the general public, even though our competitors might have launched them in this state or worse." Walker compared the endeavor to an attempt to swim to Hawaii. "We swam hundreds of miles -- we set a Guinness Book for World Records for swimming distance -- but we still didn't swim to Hawaii," he said. "And we were being jumped on, not for the amazing swimming that we did, but the fact that we didn't get to the destination." While Apple has not shown public demos of the promised SIri upgrades, Walker did highlight several examples of the features working during this meeting.

Siri has become an unmitigated disaster, and AI won't save it - 9to5Mac

I know, I know. I'm late to the Siri Sucks party. In my defense, Siri's degree of suck has increased. Siri never used to trip when asked what month it is. Apple's designers nailed the glow effect though. It's not just that Siri has steadily fallen apart over the years. The floor for what's expected of a system like Siri is quickly rising. Meanwhile, Siri is waiting for someone to decide if maintenance can feasibly repair the elevator while we all take the stairs to the top of the world's tallest building. Maybe Apple will ship those Apple Intelligence upgrades to Siri next year and surprise us. But there's been a vibe shift, and the Siri vibe was never all that stellar. A voice assistant that conquers Siri's failings deserves another name. It may even require another provider. Siri is certainly more polished than when Scott Forstall demonstrated it on the iPhone 4S in October 2011. Siri really was "blow away" technology at the time. Now Siri is "go away" technology to many. In the past, calls to pronounce Siri dead made me roll my eyes. Throw Siri out and replace it with what? CarPlay or AirPods without Siri? Voice commands are essential to these experiences. But that can be true without Siri. Drastic measures are needed to extinguish this particular dumpster fire. Piling more junk on top of this system with a long expired sell-by date will only prolong the burn. Damage control is possible. Start by discontinuing the Siri brand. Declare Siri complete and in maintenance mode. Add no new features. Cull features with the highest failure rates. Call the remaining features Voice Control. Don't break the wake word, but consider a less personified alternative. The problem set for Siri has always been vast. Adding a heavy AI layer may only multiply possible failure points. Salvage the Apple Intelligence brand by defining it based on what has shipped. Choose three pillars. Writing Tools: autocorrect for your ideas. Notification Summaries: what you need to know. Generate: tools as creative as you. Apple won't do it, but it should allow AI voice assistants like ChatGPT Advanced Voice Mode, Google Gemini, Amazon's upcoming Alexa+, and Perplexity's voice mode to have more system integration. This would mean the ability to be invoked without unlocking the device, using Voice Control to summon, and through satellite accessories like AirPods and Apple Watch. This could be a brighter future. Stick to your strengths, Apple, as a platform provider and creator of high quality hardware. Otherwise I can't shake the feeling that AI-first hardware will make the iPhone come off as a great camera with a nice system design and amazing silicon that greatly lags behind on system-level AI capabilities. Amazon's Fire Phone may have ended in a fire sale, but I would be willing to jump to an Android phone with deep ChatGPT integration today. That's the greatest vibe shift for me personally. I'll end with what I wrote before Apple indefinitely delayed its more personal Siri:

Apple has two big aces up its sleeve to rise above AI struggles - 9to5Mac

One of the biggest narratives currently going around about Apple is the company's AI struggles. But while those struggles are very real, Apple has two big aces up its sleeve that should minimize the damage from 'new Siri' shipping late, and propel the company into a bright future. Those two things: innovations in Apple's upcoming hardware and software. Apple's bread and butter has long been the integration of hardware, software, and services to create great products. Those products then tend to sell in very large quantities, and make Apple extremely successful. AI is obviously becoming increasingly important for every tech player. It's important to Apple's core business of selling products. But, I would argue, it's not yet that important to Apple's business. I suspect that for the average person in the market for a new smartphone, tablet, or laptop, AI is still not nearly at the top of their priority list. And especially not the very specific, chatbot assistant-style AI that is Siri. iPhones, iPads, and Macs all have AI today, and it seems to work relatively fine for most people. The many current Apple Intelligence features may not represent the best of AI as relates to competitors, but they're perfectly adequate. Yes, Siri needs a lot of work. But how many of your friends, when buying a new device, will make a purchase decision based on Siri? I don't have data to back this up, but I feel very confident in saying two things matter way more to users: Apple may need another year or more to iron out its Siri problems. But during that year, it will be giving users two things they care about much more. This fall, the iPhone 17 lineup will include an ultra-thin, futuristic model that's sure to attract a lot of attention. iPhone 17 Air will be the first model in a while that's likely to regularly prompt the excited question, "Is that the new iPhone?" Its radical new look will merit a lot more interest and envy, I suspect, than an updated Siri ever will. Similarly, Apple is planning notable design changes for its iPhone 17 Pro line. There are even hints that we may get the first iPhone Ultra this year, complete with a massive battery that should make a lot of users happy. These kinds of innovations with Apple's most important product ever couldn't come at a better time. Paired with the unusually exciting iPhone 17 line, Apple reportedly plans to ship major design overhauls for its software this year. iOS 19 is expected to bring the biggest visual redesign to the iPhone since iOS 7 back in 2013. Big changes are on the way for macOS 16 and iPadOS 19 too. Apple ships new features for its software platforms all the time. But the company's major redesigns this year are bound to get a lot of attention. Again, if you ask your friends whether they care more about a big iOS redesign or a better Siri with AI, I suspect opinions will be one-sided. Apple has been unable to ship its big Siri upgrades on the timeline it originally expected. That's unfortunate. There's no doubt that competitors like OpenAI and Google are making AI advancements faster than Apple. But the sky isn't falling. Apple's core business continues chugging along, and should have a big year ahead thanks to the iPhone 17 line, iOS 19, and the variety of other big products shipping. Hopefully we'll see a powerful, personalized new Siri arrive by this time next year, and Apple's AI struggles can be put behind the company. But in the meantime, Apple has plenty of exciting things coming to keep us distracted. How big a problem do you think Apple's Siri and AI struggles are? Let us know in the comments.

Report: Apple internally acknowledges 'ugly and embarrassing' Siri delays

It's bad to miss on new features, but Apple should be worried about how bad the current version is, too. According to a report from Bloomberg, Senior Director of Siri and Information Intelligence Robby Walker held an all-hands meeting to discuss the recent delay of new Siri features. He called the delay of these key features "ugly and embarrassing," according to the report, and said the team was facing a "bad period." The features in question -- on-screen awareness, personal context, and in-app actions, have reportedly been delayed until at least 2026, but Walker did not state in the meeting when the features would actually be delivered. Apple has only said publically that the new Siri features would arrive "in the coming year." The features were promoted before they were ready, he acknowledged and lamented that his team is probably feeling pretty bad right about now. According to Bloomberg's account, Walker vowed to deliver "an industry-leading virtual assistant." It's unclear if Apple has the right organization or vision to achieve that. As we wrote recently, Siri didn't just miss a deadline for new advanced AI features, it's actually embarrassingly bad at all the things it's already supposed to do well. Walker said that, while the company is aiming to release the delayed Siri features in the iOS 19 timeframe, it may not even make that release target. "We have other commitments across Apple to other projects," he said, adding "We want to keep our commitments to those, and we understand those are now potentially more timeline-urgent than the features that have been deferred." It is becoming increasingly obvious that Siri is in bad shape and hope is not on the horizon. Dramatic improvements are needed not just to "catch up" to rivals, but to deliver existing Siri features at a quality level Apple can be proud of. It may be that Siri needs to be entirely re-engineered from the ground up, and that sort of thing can take years, even if it's already underway. Meanwhile, Apple rivals in the AI space are racing ahead -- by the time Apple delivers a "new and improved" Siri, how advanced will the competition be? The Bloomberg report states that Apple doesn't plan to fire any executives over Apple's increasing AI troubles, but that the situation can change at any time.

Apple's Siri setback is a much bigger deal than the company wants to admit

If you got a chance to see Apple's WWDC 2024 last June, you got to hear about a very exciting future for Siri. As part of the Apple Intelligence features that would roll out later in 2024, Apple's digital assistant was set to get a whole lot smarter, boosted by Apple's push into artificial intelligence. The days of awkward exchanges between you and Sir would be over. Instead, Apple executives painted a picture of free-flowing conversations with the digital assistant, as Siri was able to recognize content on your screen like dates, phone numbers and other details and take action based on what it saw. And of course, you'd be able to direct Siri to take action across a lot of different apps that had been previously closed off to the digital assistant. It's been nine months since that WWDC 2024 keynote, and it's safe to say that the vision of Siri Apple spelled out that day has yet to materialize. And it doesn't seem likely to for some time, by Apple's own admission. Siri has undergone some improvements thanks to Apple Intelligence, such as a new visual cue for when the assistant is active on the iPhone. When talking to the assistant on an iPhone 15 Pro or later, you can correct yourself in mid-sentence without confusing Siri and you can ask follow-up questions. But the marquee features of context awareness and Siri support across apps have yet to materialize in the current version of iOS 18. And with Apple confirming that these improvements may not show up until 2026, users of Apple products are getting a little bit antsy about Apple's high-profile AI efforts. That's nothing compared to the feelings within Apple headquarters itself, apparently. As I was working on this article, Bloomberg published a report of an all-hands meeting for the Siri division in which Robby Walker, a senior director at the company, acknowledged Apple's missteps. Specifically, Walker reportedly told Apple employees that the company shouldn't have promoted the Siri features before they were complete. ""This was not one of these situations where we get to show people our plan after it's done. We showed people before," Walker told employees, according to Bloomberg's account. Siri's delay is obviously embarrassing for Apple, as no company likes to push back promised features. But it's fair to wonder if the delay hints at bigger problems for the company. "The problem isn't that Apple has delayed smarter Siri," said Avi Greengart, lead analyst at Techsponential when I asked him about the significance of Apple's decision to push back some of the bigger Siri improvements. "The problem is that Apple promised smarter Siri as a reason to purchase its devices today." In some ways, Siri is just one part of the Apple Intelligence puzzle, with Apple also delivering AI features like Writing Tools to suggest tonal changes, photo-editing and image-generating capabilities and assorted summarization tools. Many of those additions are now in place, with some even winning praise for their usefulness and the way they fit into users' workflows. But the fact is, these are very rudimentary AI capabilities -- nice things to have on hand, but hardly the revolutionary tools AI advocates are promising. More to the point, Apple Intelligence features also mirror what you can find on devices from Samsung and Google, only Galaxy AI and Google's offerings are much more polished at this point. After the first Apple Intelligence features emerged with the iOS 18.1 update last fall, I wrote that Apple's AI efforts felt very much like a work in progress. We're now up to the iOS 18.4 beta, with the first preview of iOS 19 likely to show up in a few months, and I'd still have the same assessment of Apple Intelligence. And I'm not alone in that view. "Today's Apple Intelligence is not a compelling set of features," Greengart wrote in a research note published in the wake of Apple's announcement that Siri improvements were delayed. "Genmoji is fun, few people need AI help adjusting the tone of their iMessages, and having AI summarize messages vacillates between being genuinely useful and an annoyance." A much more sophisticated version of Siri like the one Apple was promoting last June would have been a significant step forward. Without those changes in place, Apple's rivals have a golden opportunity to race even farther ahead on the AI front. Take Samsung's Galaxy AI, which debuted in 2024 with the release of the Galaxy S24 and saw some significant updates this year with the Galaxy S25. The most promising change is the addition of Samsung's Personal Data Engine, which uses your activity on the S25 models to offer personalized suggestions and actions. That's going to be most evident in the Now Brief feature on board the S25 models, with AI surfacing information that's relevant to the day ahead. In our Galaxy S25 testing, Now Brief was pretty rudimentary , but the promise is that it will get smarter over time as the Personal Data Engine learns more about the person using the phone. A more immediate benefit for Galaxy S25 users is the integration of Google's Gemini assistant and its ability to perform various actions across apps -- searching for a list of restaurants that meet certain criteria and then texting that information to friends, all with one command. That's far ahead of anything Siri can offer at this point. "The problem with delaying Siri is that users will get used to Gemini and other alternatives," said Gartner analyst Ranjit Atwal. "This will set an increasingly higher bar, and Siri may always be playing catch up." Techsponential's Greengart agrees that Apple trails the likes of Samsung, Google, Amazon and Meta when it comes to next-generation AI features, but adds that the lead is not insurmountable -- yet. "Do they have enough of a lead that it will matter?" he said. "Will any of this stuff work well enough for consumers to trust and come to rely on it?" Adding to the concerns over Siri's future is uncertainty over just when we'll see the delayed features that Apple first touted in June 2024. Logic would dictate that the delay would mean the features would now be part of this year's iOS 19 release, but even that's up in the air. A Bloomberg report on the issues Apple was running into implementing new features with Siri suggested that the features might not be ready for the public until early next year. Even then, there was some talk in that report that the features would be scrapped, with Apple starting from square one -- a move that would definitely push back the launch of Siri 2.0 into 2026, possibly as part of iOS 20. iOS 19 rumors have started emerging, and they're not particularly encouraging on that front. Most of the rumors so far are focusing on an interface overhaul for Apple's iPhone software -- an important change, certainly, but not one that says anything about Apple's plans for Siri. To that end, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman has reported that iOS 19 could see more apps making use of Apple Intelligence. But worrying, Gurman added that "everything I've heard suggests that iOS 19 will not include any significant consumer-facing changes to Apple Intelligence." We'll get the definitive picture of what Apple's plans are at WWDC 2025, which you'd expect to take place in June. A public beta of iOS 19 would follow in the summer. "The biggest thing Apple could do is release genAI-enhanced Siri in beta, so we can see how capable or limited it is in the real world, not just in WWDC mock-ups and ads," Greengart said. For my part, I'm hoping Apple uses the spotlight granted by its developer conference to directly address the delayed Siri's features, giving us a realistic timeline for when we can expect changes to arrive. Basically, the discussion Apple had in the all-hands meeting reported on by Bloomberg should happen in some form at WWDC, with Apple speaking directly to its developers and its customers. Delays happen; it's how companies respond to them that determines just how concerned we should be.

Siri 2.0 features reportedly only working 'two-thirds to 80% of the time'

After whispers last month that the big generative AI upgrade to the Siri personal assistant was in trouble, Apple officially confirmed the delay last week. As commentators have pointed out, it's an embarrassing moment for Apple, because it suggests the demo of the improved Siri at WWDC last year was actually little more than a concept video. Now, thanks to extremely detailed report of an internal meeting at Apple published by Bloomberg, we have some insights into why Siri 2.0 has been pushed back so dramatically. The good news is that it's working; the bad news is that it's not working consistently. The piece quotes extensively Robby Walker, a senior director at Apple, who describes the saga as "ugly." The piece claims that the decision to postpone was because Siri 2.0 only works as intended two-thirds to 80% of the time, making a delay feel like a no-brainer. "If you were using these features in the build, you were probably wondering: Are these ready?", Walker is quoted as asking. "How do I feel about shipping these to our customers? Is this the right choice?" While most people accept that AI makes mistakes, a one-in-three (or even a best-case one-in-five) failure rate is clearly not a great introduction to new technology, and a recipe for users to opt out. As such, Walker reportedly explained that the delay is to ensure the team "can make more progress to get those percentages up, so that users get something they can really count on." "These are not quite ready to go to the general public, even though our competitors might have launched them in this state or worse," he's quoted as adding. Interestingly, we do get an insight into Siri 2.0's functionality, and it's the kind of thing that would certainly stump the current version. The report writes that the AI was "able to locate his driver's license number on command and find specific photos of a child," and that Siri could also "precisely manipulate apps" via voice. We're told how Siri embedded content in an email, added recipients and made other changes. The expectation was that the new Siri would slip to iOS 19 and launch with the iPhone 17, but even that may be optimistic, with Walker stating that while that's the aim, it "doesn't mean that we're shipping then." There are "other commitments across Apple to other projects" that may take priority, Walker reportedly said. "We understand those are now potentially more timeline-urgent than the features that have been deferred." While Walker concluded the meeting by stating his belief that Apple will "ship the world's greatest virtual assistant", the flashy announcement followed by public silence has echos of AirPower, Apple's wireless charger that was announced at the company's 2017 iPhone X and then abandoned, unreleased, two years later.

Apple makes a move to revive its Siri revamp -- and the Vision Pro boss could play a part

Apple's got troubles with its AI efforts, highlighted by a delayed overhaul to its Siri personal assistant. And the company has reportedly decided to look inward for the solution. Earlier this month, Apple conceded publicly that features like a context-aware Siri that could work across various apps on your iPhone would not be part of iOS 18 as promised and may not even be ready until 2026. And now Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reports that Apple is making changes to whose overseeing the project. According to the report, CEO Tim Cook has become dissatisfied with the efforts led by current Apple Intelligence head John Giannadrea. Reportedly, Giannadrea will no longer oversee Siri development, with Apple executive Mike Rockwell taking over those efforts. If Rockwell's name isn't familiar, his work should be. He's credited as the creator of the Apple Vision Pro headset. Meanwhile, Giannadrea will remain involved in Apple's AI efforts, Bloomberg reports. The personnel reshuffle emphasizes the importance Apple places on the growth of Apple Intelligence. And the company's choice to take over Siri's revamp signals its belief in Rockwell's reputation reputation for getting products with difficult technical issues out the door, as he did with the Vision Pro. While the Vision Pro hasn't been selling gangbusters for Apple, largely thanks to its $3,500 price, the headset is fairly impressive and does what Apple claims it's supposed to -- something you can't say about the Apple Intelligence version of Siri. Reportedly, the effort to get the Vision Pro out the door involved a large team of engineers, designers and even involved artificial intelligence to complete -- all of which was overseen by Rockwell. This isn't the only move Apple has made in the last few months to right Siri. In January, reports surfaced that Kim Vorrath was brought into the AI team, an internal Apple "fixer," and apparently, one of Rockwell's lieutenants to aid with Siri. It's possible the move was an early foray so that Rockwell would have reports ready when he was finally brought on. An AI-assisted Siri was supposed to be a center-piece of Apple's attempt at AI with Apple Intelligence. However, subsequent reports have indicated that the AI-boosted voice assistant only works two-thirds to 80% of the time, and that's just in internal testing of features that have yet to launch. Now, users are complaining that even the shipping version of Siri isn't working properly. A better Siri is missing and that's problem, but a broken Siri is just as bad. Whether or not consumers are demanding generative AI features is beside the point now. Large tech companies like Apple are leaning into AI, and Apple aggressively advertised its version of AI during WWDC 2024 and as a key reason to buy the iPhone 16. The slow rollout of Apple Intelligence has either produced delays of key AI features like a revamped Siri or the removal of tools like AI-generated notification summaries. Rockwell seemingly has a good track record and he may get Apple's ambitions set to true, but he has a big job in front of him. We're certain whatever AI tools he's able to push out will receive intense scrutiny after so many delays.

Apple 'ousts Siri boss,' finally taking failures seriously

John Giannandrea is reportedly out as Siri lead, Mike Rockwell is in. The accumulated failures and humiliations that have dogged Siri in recent years have finally proved too much for Apple's senior management, who have decided to oust John Giannandrea from his role as Siri boss. The news was broken Thursday by the Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman, citing the usual anonymous "people familiar with the situation." Gurman's sources say Apple CEO Tim Cook has lost faith with Giannandrea's ability "to execute on product development" and is replacing him as Siri lead with Mike Rockwell, currently vice-president of the Vision Products Group. Gurman adds that Apple responded to his initial article by announcing the move internally, but it hasn't yet made any public statement. It appears from the report that Giannandrea is not being fired, and will remain with the company in a more limited role covering other aspects of Apple's AI work. His future prospects at Apple, however, might be less than stellar after this setback. Giannandrea, who at time of writing remains on the Apple Leadership page as Senior Vice President, Machine Learning and AI Strategy, was brought in from Google in 2018 with a remit to get Apple's AI efforts up to scratch. Mike Rockwell is an interesting and in many ways less obvious choice as his replacement. He oversaw the successful completion of the Vision Pro project, which gives him considerable kudos within the company-as Steve Jobs once said, real artists ship-but it can hardly be said to have set the world alight and remains a niche product with (as expected) few sales. As Gurman notes, he had little experience in AI and machine learning before starting work on Vision Pro, whereas Giannandrea spent eight years running Google's Machine Intelligence, Research and Search department before arriving at Apple Park. But something had to change. Siri has been an unreliable voice assistant for many years and shows little sign of improvement, with the much-touted and AI-powered 'new Siri' endlessly delayed and currently not expected until 2026 at the earliest. A truly modernised version might not be here until 2027. (Another Siri exec, Robby Walker, reportedly called these delays "ugly and embarrassing," and he's not wrong.) Giannandrea has been given plenty of time to sort this out, and now that time has run out.

Siri AI delays increase industry concern

Why it matters: When it announced Apple Intelligence last June, Apple was already trailing major competitors in outlining its AI strategy. Driving the news: Apple confirmed earlier this month that the enhanced Siri was taking longer than expected, with features that were due imminently now expected to arrive "in the coming year." Between the lines: While Apple has shipped the first pieces of Apple Intelligence, what has yet to arrive are the components that really made the strategy compelling -- the notion of combining AI smarts with personal data in a secure and privacy-preserving way. The big picture: While Apple has struggled with its AI efforts, the industry is barreling forward with unprecedented speed. What they're saying: Industry observers have been pulling no punches in describing what the delay could mean for Apple's future. Daring Fireball's John Gruber thrashed Apple, arguing that not only is the company late with AI, but it has now broken its long, enviable record of only promoting products when they are ready to ship.

It's crunch time for Apple Intelligence as Apple execs look for a solution to the company's AI woes

It's not too late for Apple's AI division to succeed, but time is running out Apple Intelligence is expected to be the main topic of conversation at Apple's major exec offsite meeting later this week, as the company looks for a solution to its AI turmoil. It hasn't been a great week for Apple's AI endeavors, with the company struggling to meet its launch window for the headline Apple Intelligence feature, a new and upgraded Siri voice assistant. Apple officially delayed Apple Intelligence-powered Siri with personal context and on-screen awareness last week, removed an ad showcasing the voice assistant, and failed to give a launch window for a headline software that was expected to launch as part of the iPhone 16's first year of release. On Friday, Mark Gurman reported for Bloomberg that Robby Walker, a senior director at Apple, "told staff that delays to key features have been ugly and embarrassing, and a decision to publicly promote the technology before it was ready-made matters worse." Now Gurman is reporting that this week is going to be pivotal for Apple Intelligence, with Apple's top 100 executives meeting for a company offsite that's expected to have Apple Intelligence as its focal point. Gurman also notes that a shake-up to Tim Cook's executive team because of these AI shortcomings is unlikely. Writing in his weekly Power On newsletter Gurman said, "Given the nature of this collective failure, it's unlikely to result in management changes on Cook's executive team. That would mean admitting fault, which Apple hates doing. A shake-up would also suggest that the company took one of the world's preeminent names in AI -- [John] Giannandrea -- and failed to put him in a position to succeed, making yet another failed outside hire to Cook's cabinet." With all eyes on Apple and Apple Intelligence, the company has to make major changes and fast, but is too little too late? Or can Apple Intelligence still thrive like we all initially expected it to? At WWDC 2024, Apple showcased an AI-powered Siri that was capable of personal assistant features we'd not seen anywhere else. With the ability to know what's going on in your life through your iPhone, while still maintaining Apple's industry-leading privacy features, the next generation of Siri was met with huge fanfare and excitement. Fast forward nine months later and that fanfare and excitement has completely flickered out. With Apple Intelligence's lukewarm initial launch, and delays to the piece de resistance, with no one from the industry actually seeing Siri in action, it's fair to say that these are worrying times for Apple's AI division. That said, if any company can take shortcomings and turn them into positives, it would be the Cupertino-based tech giant. With execs meeting later this week, and public perception of Apple Intelligence dwindling, now would be the time for Apple to make major moves and show its loyal fan base why they should still drink the Apple juice.

Top Siri executive addresses Siri delays in private meeting

One of Apple's top executives has called the delay of the new, more personalized Siri "ugly and embarrassing" and vows to "ship the world's greatest virtual assistant" at some point. Apple has been facing significant challenges in deploying one of its most highly advertised Apple Intelligence features: an enhanced, personalized Siri. The company had heavily promoted it at both WWDC and the September iPhone event. And it still airs most of the commercials that reference it. While Apple's been slammed by the media for the delay, the company isn't exactly going easy on itself either. Robby Walker, Apple's senior director of Siri and Information Intelligence, called an all-hands-on-deck meeting to address the issue, as sources told Bloomberg. Walker doesn't have a concrete time frame for when the enhanced Siri will finally launch. The company may be aiming for iOS 19, but the senior director has his doubts. "We have other commitments across Apple to other projects," Walker reportedly said, citing new software and hardware initiatives. "We want to keep our commitments to those, and we understand those are now potentially more timeline-urgent than the features that have been deferred." As it turns out, the enhanced Siri was delayed because the company found that it only works properly about two-thirds of the time. He urged the team to make more progress so that when the feature finally debuts, it will meet customer expectations. He believes that there is enough personal accountability to go around, referencing both his boss, head of AI John Giannandrea, and software chief Craig Federighi. However, it doesn't seem like anyone's getting fired just yet. Walker told staff they should feel proud for getting as much done as they had. He commended them for pouring their "hearts and souls into this thing." At the same time, he allegedly seemed to think it was unfair that Apple heavily promoted a feature that wasn't ready. He showed examples of the technology working during the meeting to underscore just how much progress they'd made. Many team members are feeling burnt out, and Walker says that his team is entitled to some time away to recharge before diving back into the project. Regarding the delay, Walker reminds staff that Apple holds itself to a higher standard. He points out that Apple's competitors have launched virtual assistants in worse states. That wouldn't be good enough for Apple. Walker ended the meeting by saying Apple would "ship the world's greatest virtual assistant." What he considers that to be is unclear, and not disclosed in Friday's report. Apple has faced myriad challenges during its artificial intelligence push. Not only did Apple arrive relatively late to the game, but it also released features at a glacial pace. It's hardly an ideal situation for a company that insists Apple Intelligence will bolster lackluster post-pandemic sales. In fact, poor performance could wind up doing the opposite. Poor Siri has taken the brunt of the criticism, as it has for the better part of a decade. Delays aside, it's also unfortunate that Siri is getting notably worse than it used to be.

Apple's AI plans for Siri hit major roadblocks behind the scenes

Apple's plans for an AI overhaul of its Siri voice assistant have not gone as smoothly as the brand originally hoped. Those developing on the project are still trying to work out the flaws in the technology, but don't seem confident about a prompt release. The company aims to seamlessly integrate Siri with its Apple Intelligence AI tool, but this task appears to be easier in concept than execution. Recommended Videos A new report from Bloomberg detailed that the brand previously hoped to have the feature released in a much shorter timeline, but now its plans may align with claims of a long delay. The publication indicated that the Siri team recently had an all-hands meeting where Apple senior director Robby Walker, discussed the state of the project, calling the delay an "ugly" situation. He told the team there's no guarantee the Siri features will be ready for iOS 19 this year, but "doesn't mean that we're shipping then," he said. Currently, Apple is aiming to release the feature in June to coincide with its mobile software. The Verge noted that Apple first planned to launch the AI-inundated Siri last June to compete with the brand's contemporaries in the market. Last week, a brand spokesperson confirmed to Daring Fireball a second delay of the feature, which was rumored to launch in April with iOS 18.4. Reports before that noted that the project, known internally as "LLM Siri," could be delayed potentially for several iOS generations, up until 2027. It also appears Apple may be prioritizing other developments over the Siri project at this time. The company notably has several upcoming hardware launches, in addition to the aforementioned iOS 19 rollout, among other software releases. Reports also indicate the brand plans to do an overhaul update across all its platforms to make them more uniformly functional and practical. Apple is expected to showcase the updates at the World Wide Developers Conference in June. If true, the Siri project could be held back even further. "We have other commitments across Apple to other projects. We want to keep our commitments to those, and we understand those are now potentially more timeline-urgent than the features that have been deferred," Walker said, per the Bloomberg report. While there has been only one official statement from Apple, there has reportedly been a lot of buzz among the company's senior executives behind the scenes. Walker told the Siri team that software chief Craig Federighi, and AI head John Giannandrea, among others, are taking "intense personal accountability" for the advanced features of Siri "taking longer than expected." In a prior Bloomberg report, Federighi supposedly discussed having concerns over features malfunctioning during internal tests. However, Walker assured his team that their progress on the project was impressive and that Siri's AI features would launch as soon as they were ready. "Customers are not expecting only these new features, but they also want a more fully rounded-out Siri. These are not quite ready to go to the general public, even though our competitors might have launched them in this state or worse," he said.

Execs to work on a roadmap during upcoming retreat

Siri's upgrade to leverage Apple Intelligence will be a focus at Apple's annual retreat. Apple's ongoing promise to improve its vocal assistant Siri with Apple Intelligence has still not been fulfilled, and looks to be a failure at multiple levels of the executive management team. The head of Apple's Siri efforts, Robby Walker, has at least privately acknowledged the problems, calling them "embarrassing" and "disappointing." Apple's advance marketing of features that weren't yet ready has been, he acknowledged, part of the problem. It's clear, based on the marketing of the features that began late last year, that Apple -- or at least its marketing department -- expected more Apple Intelligence features to have arrived by now, reports Bloomberg. This would have included Siri gaining on-screen awareness, personal context, and improved voice control -- both of which are now officially delayed. It's now expected that these features may not fully roll out until sometime in 2026. It's an unusual miss from a company that generally delivers on features when it says it will. To be clear, Apple is allowed to have unexpected problems. No Apple product is perfect, but broadly speaking the company delivers software, services, and hardware that often delight users, an suffers fewer "deadline misses" than its competitors. In most companies, a delay like this would be accompanied by the company saving face by announcing the resignation of an executive in charge of the delayed rollout. Apple's executive team, however, are apparently a tight-knit group that has to tolerate occasional misfires like this rather than dare to lose someone -- or bring in anyone new. Big transitions at the top of Apple's team are rare: Tim Cook has been CEO since 2011, Jeff Williams has been the company's COO since 2010. Most of the various hardware and software division heads have been in those positions since at least 2012. This week, 100 top Apple executives will be meeting for their annual retreat -- and the top topic for discussion is likely to be how to speed up the evolution of Apple Intelligence, particularly to improve Siri's interactions with users. Traditionally, Apple has been tight-lipped about new features and abilities until the company was sure it was ready to ship -- but that didn't happen in this case. Apple Intelligence brought the promise of a "smarter" Siri, compared to the incremental and minor updates since its initial release. That said, users would benefit immensely from the "personal context" understanding of users Siri will gain from Apple Intelligence. The reason this hasn't already happened is that Apple Intelligence doesn't yet include that feature, except in beta. Publicly, the delays with Siri and Apple Intelligence look like Apple's top brass are unwilling to take any blame for failures or missed deadlines. A seemingly-permanent executive is reassuring when the company is firing on all cylinders -- but recent missteps like these suggest that some rethinking and fresh voices should be considered at this year's retreat, and going forward. Despite the delays to key parts of Apple Intelligence and Siri, we can expect the same group of top Apple executives to make the trek to luxury resort Carmel Valley Ranch, as they have for the past several years. This year, it could be an opportunity for Apple's leadership to refocus on getting announced services and productions out the door -- and to not announce things before they're ready. The annual retreat could be an opportunity for all the various executives to come together and work out a detailed plan to deliver the rest of Apple Intelligence's promised features to users quickly. While the general public may not have much awareness of the coming upgrades, Apple's most dedicated fans are growing impatient for long-promised upgrades. Apple has since pulled TV advertisements touting Apple Intelligence until the most anticipated features are ready to roll out. But Apple's timeline has slipped, and a much-improved Siri is now not expected to debut until the arrival of iOS 19, which is expected to launch in the autumn of 2025. Importantly, iOS 19 and macOS 16 will -- at a minimum -- need to be ready in time for beta-testing the new features and integration with developers in time for June's annual WWDC conference. The biggest change in Siri's capabilities since its introduction in 2011 will need to have a smooth roll-out for Apple to even begin to catch up with its rivals, including Google's Gemini and Microsoft's Copilot AI engines.

Apple's hardware can dominate in AI -- so why is Siri struggling so much?

Over the past year or so, a strange contradiction has emerged in the world of Apple: the company makes some of the best computers in the world, whether you need a simple consumer laptop or a high-powered workstation. Yet Apple's artificial intelligence (AI) efforts are struggling so much that it's almost laughable. Take Siri, for example. Many readers will have heard that Apple has taken the highly unusual (and highly embarrassing) step of publicly admitting the new, AI-backed Siri needs more time in the oven. The new Siri infused with Apple Intelligence just isn't living up to Apple's promises. Recommended Videos A recent thread on Reddit highlights this well. It's posted by someone who is bewildered by the fact that Siri apparently can't even tell them what month it is. I tried it and it's true: say to your Mac or iPhone, "Hey Siri, what month is it?" and you'll most likely get a response of "Sorry, I don't understand." This is an incredibly simple request, yet Siri is totally stumped by it. But look at Apple's hardware and you'll see a different story. The Mac Studio is tremendously powerful -- it's one of the best computers on the market today, and one of the most powerful options available to buyers. And that's before we've even seen what the upcoming M4 Mac Pro is capable of. And it's not like we can say that AI is tripping Apple's hardware up. The Mac Studio is, after all, an AI beast. That point was aptly demonstrated by Alex Cheema of AI firm EXO Labs, who posted a video on X showcasing a dual Mac Studio setup running the immensely demanding DeepSeek R1 large language model entirely on-device. The Mac Studios packed in 1TB of combined memory and cost upwards of $20,000 for the pair, yet that's a fraction of the cost of any other alternative, is just as capable, and lets you do everything from your desk instead of a data center. In other words, Apple's hardware is incredibly capable. Yet the company's AI software is so disappointing that all that compute power is being wasted on creating frivolous Genmoji and incorrectly summarizing your notifications. The interesting, powerful parts of Apple's AI software -- a more personalized Siri that's aware of your individual context, for example -- just aren't ready yet. Hardware and software This situation shouldn't just concern you if you are a demanding AI pro -- it's a worry for us consumers too. The tight integration of Apple's hardware and software has always been one of the company's core strengths. It's what enables brilliant features like iPhone Mirroring, Universal Control, Continuity Camera, and so much more. But now, it seems like the software is falling behind, right at the time when Apple needs to get it right. That's because Apple's AI advantage is privacy. For example, thanks to Private Cloud Compute, you can run intensive AI tasks while keeping your data safe. Apple also agreed special terms with OpenAI to ensure that its ChatGPT integration protects user privacy. I'm rooting for Apple here because I want an AI that doesn't abuse my private data. Yet if Apple's AI software efforts are lacking, the risk is that people turn to more unscrupulous alternatives instead. And this whole debacle brings up a broader question: will Apple be able to sustain the strong links between its hardware and its software? Here, I imagine -- and hope -- that the answer is yes. Apple is struggling to get its AI hardware and software on the same level, but I see no reason to be alarmed in other fields. Of course, that could always change, and AI is a cautionary tale here. Apple mustn't let its software fall behind its hardware (or vice versa) or it risks losing out. With the stakes so high, that's bad news for everyone.

Apple Shuffles AI Executive Ranks in Bid to Turn Around Siri

Apple is undergoing a rare shake-up of its executive ranks, aiming to get its artificial intelligence efforts back on track after months of delays and stumbles, according to people familiar with the situation. Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook has lost confidence in the ability of AI head John Giannandrea to execute on product development, so he's moving over another top executive to help: Vision Pro creator Mike Rockwell. In a new role, Rockwell will be in charge of the Siri virtual assistant, according to the people, who asked not to be identified because the moves haven't been announced. Rockwell will report to software chief Craig Federighi, removing Siri completely from Giannandrea's command. Apple announced the changes to employees on Thursday following Bloomberg News' initial report. The iPhone maker's senior leaders -- a group known as the Top 100 -- just met at a secretive, annual offsite gathering to discuss the future of the company. Its AI efforts were a key talking point at the summit, Bloomberg has reported. The moves underscore the plight facing Apple: Its AI technology is severely lagging industry rivals, and the company has shown little sign of catching up. The Apple Intelligence platform was late to arrive a Rockwell is currently the vice president in charge of the Vision Products Group, or VPG, the division that developed Apple's headset. As part of the changes, he'll be leaving that team, though the Vision Pro software groups will follow him to Federighi's software engineering group. The hardware team will remain under John Ternus and report to Paul Meade, a hardware engineering executive who worked on the Vision Pro. A spokeswoman for Cupertino, California-based Apple declined to comment on the moves. The need to rescue Siri is especially urgent. The company has struggled to release new features that were announced last June, including the ability to tap into a user's data to fulfill queries. Despite the technology not being ready, Apple advertised the enhancements for months on TV in order to sell the iPhone 16. Following development snags, the company further delayed the features earlier this month. The Apple manager who has led Siri until now told his team in a recent meeting that the delays were "ugly" and that staffers may be angry and embarrassed. The executive, Robby Walker, also said he was unsure when the features would actually arrive due to competing development priorities. Apple has publicly stated that the features will be ready sometime in the "coming year." Apple shares have declined 15% this year, part of a broader retreat for tech stocks. They fell less than 1% to $214.10 (roughly Rs. 18,412 crore) on Thursday in New York. By tapping Rockwell, Apple is betting on an executive with proven technical experience. He has demonstrated the ability to ship new products and run an engineering organization with thousands of people. Rockwell has a knack for solving problems and often takes the role of evangelist for futuristic technologies. Rockwell is known as the brains behind the Vision Pro, which is considered a technical marvel but not a commercial hit. Getting the headset to market required a number of technical breakthroughs, some of which leveraged forms of artificial intelligence. He is now moving away from the Vision Pro at a time when that unit is struggling to plot a future for the product. Over the last decade, Rockwell has been one of the few Apple executives to take a major hardware device from "zero to one" -- industry parlance for conceiving a new product and bringing it to market. He joined Apple's hardware engineering group in 2015, and the company released the Vision Pro in February of last year. Giannandrea has a different background. A former Google star, he was hired in 2018 to run Apple's AI work. Giannandrea had been one of Alphabet Inc.'s most senior executives, overseeing the search and AI divisions. Rockwell, in contrast, doesn't have prior experience as an AI leader or clout within the burgeoning machine-learning community. Apple has set the stage for the change by increasingly referring internally to the Vision Pro and VPG initiatives as "AI products." Rockwell's experience with hardware also could help the company more deeply embed AI into its future devices. Already, the company is exploring the idea of AirPods with outward-facing cameras that could feed data to AI. Siri -- the AI division's main consumer product -- has had a number of bosses over the years. When Apple first launched the voice assistant in 2011, it was overseen by software executive Scott Forstall. It was then given to services chief Eddy Cue in 2012 and transferred to the current software head, Federighi, in 2017. Giannandrea took it over a year later. Now it will be led by Rockwell, with oversight returning again to Federighi Giannandrea will remain at the company, even with Rockwell taking over Siri. An abrupt departure would signal publicly that the AI efforts have been tumultuous -- something Apple is reluctant to acknowledge. Giannandrea's other responsibilities include oversight of research, testing and technologies related to AI. The company also has a team reporting to Giannandrea investigating robotics. Federighi, Rockwell's new manager, is the company's senior vice president of software engineering. He oversees development of Apple's iOS, iPadOS and macOS operating systems, as well as development tools. Along with Giannandrea, he was a key figure in the development of Apple Intelligence. Right now, he's also orchestrating an extensive revamp of the company's core software. Siri had been plagued by engineering and quality problems long before Giannandrea arrived on the scene. Though he struggled to turn around that technology, he's made headway in other areas. That includes luring top AI researchers to Apple, which hadn't been known for such work in the past. He also unified the company's AI work under one roof, pulling in related technologies from across Apple into a single division. The AI management shift has been months in the making and predates Apple announcing the Siri delays. Last year, the company tapped Rockwell deputy Kim Vorrath to help advise the Siri team. She's known for bringing order and execution to troubled development programs. In January, she was officially moved over to the AI group as a top lieutenant to Giannandrea to oversee AI program management. She is now moving to Federighi's division. In the past several days, Apple started moving over another senior manager from Rockwell's team -- Aimee Nugent -- to the Siri group. Like Vorrath, she has a reputation for fixing challenging projects. The changes allowed two of Rockwell's trusted executives to evaluate the organization before he became heavily involved. Inside Apple, Rockwell hasn't been shy about criticizing Siri, according to people familiar with the matter. For years, he has pitched senior vice presidents on ideas for overhauling the voice assistant to make it more personalized. He has also been advising the AI group in recent weeks. Even before the management changes, Giannandrea long considered Rockwell a potential successor. When developing the Vision Pro, Rockwell believed that Siri could be a central way to control the $3,499 (roughly Rs. 3 lakh) device. Now, it's only a limited element, with the company primarily focusing on hand-and-eye control. Rockwell has had more experience with the AI team in recent months as the company worked to bring Apple Intelligence to the Vision Pro. The features are launching on the headset in April as part of a visionOS software upgrade. © 2025 Bloomberg LP

Apple's Siri Chief Said to Acknowledge AI Delays, Promise Fixes

The company has yet to reveal when its AI-backed Siri features will debut Apple Inc.'s top executive overseeing its Siri virtual assistant told staff that delays to key features have been ugly and embarrassing, and a decision to publicly promote the technology before it was ready made matters worse. Robby Walker, who serves as a senior director at Apple, delivered the stark comments during an all-hands meeting for the Siri division, saying that the team was facing a bad period. Walker also said that it's unclear when the enhancements will actually launch, according to people with knowledge of the matter, who asked not to be identified because the gathering was private. The frank discussion shows the extent of Apple's crisis in the field of artificial intelligence, where it's struggling to catch up with peers. Siri -- less advanced than rival systems -- has become a symbol of Apple's AI challenges. And the company's woes boiled over last week, when it acknowledged publicly that critical features would be delayed indefinitely. During the all-hands gathering, Walker suggested that employees on his team may be feeling angry, disappointed, burned out and embarrassed after the features were postponed. The company had been racing to get the technology ready for this spring, but now the features aren't expected until next year at the earliest, people familiar with the matter have said. Still, he praised the team for developing "incredibly impressive" features and vowed to deliver an industry-leading virtual assistant to consumers. Apple shares had fallen 16% this year through Thursday's close, part of a broader stock rout that has walloped tech companies. The stock rebounded Friday, but pared gains during the afternoon. Apple was up 1.4% at $212.58 as of 2:18 p.m. in New York. On Feb. 14, Bloomberg News reported that Apple was struggling with bugs and engineering problems on its planned artificial intelligence tools for Siri. At the time, the company postponed the release from April to May, aiming to include the features in its iOS 18.5 operating system. Now it's looking to add them as an update as early as the iOS 19 software cycle next year. A spokesperson for Cupertino, California-based Apple declined to comment on the meeting, which was put on the schedule last week. The features -- unveiled last June at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference -- are fundamental to making Siri a more effective personal assistant. The technology will allow the software to tap into users' personal data to better respond to queries. Siri, which was first introduced in 2011, also will be able to more precisely control apps and analyze content that's on a user's screen. But when Apple demonstrated the features at WWDC using a video mock-up, it only had a barely working prototype, Bloomberg has reported. Walker told staff in the meeting that the delays were especially "ugly" because Apple had already showed off the features publicly. "This was not one of these situations where we get to show people our plan after it's done," he said. "We showed people before." "To make matters worse," Walker said, Apple's marketing communications department wanted to promote the enhancements. Despite not being ready, the capabilities were included in a series of marketing campaigns and TV commercials starting last year. Apple touted the features as a key selling point of the iPhone 16 line, which otherwise lacked major changes. And it's part of a broader AI push called Apple Intelligence. Walker also raised doubts about even meeting the current release expectations. Though Apple is aiming for iOS 19, it "doesn't mean that we're shipping then," Walker said. The company has several more priorities in development, and trade-offs will need to be made, he said. "We have other commitments across Apple to other projects," Walker said, citing new software and hardware initiatives. "We want to keep our commitments to those, and we understand those are now potentially more timeline-urgent than the features that have been deferred." He said decisions on timing will be made on a "case-by-case basis" as work progresses on products planned for next year. "Customers are not expecting only these new features but they also want a more fully rounded-out Siri," he said. "We're going to ship these features and more as soon as they are ready." Walker said that there is "intense personal accountability" about this effort shared by his boss John Giannandrea, the head of AI at Apple, as well as software chief Craig Federighi and other executives. As of Friday, Apple doesn't plan to immediately fire any top executives over the AI crisis, according to people with knowledge of the matter. That decision could theoretically change at any time. In any case, the company is poised to make management adjustments. It has discussed moving more senior executives under Giannandrea to assist with a turnaround effort. Already, the company tapped longtime executive Kim Vorrath -- seen as a project fixer -- to assist the group. Walker said the decision to delay the features was made because of quality issues and that the company has found the technology only works properly up to two-thirds to 80% of the time -- which is to say it doesn't work every one out of three times. He said the group "can make more progress to get those percentages up, so that users get something they can really count on." In recent weeks, Federighi voiced concerns to other senior executives that the features weren't working as advertised, ultimately prompting the decision to delay, Bloomberg reported. Issues with Apple Intelligence were clear from the start, with the company postponing the first batch of features last year and providing vague timelines during its launch event. Walker defended his Siri group, telling them that they should be proud. Employees poured their "hearts and souls into this thing," he said. "I saw so many people giving everything they had in order to make this happen and to make incredible progress together." But Apple wants to maintain a high bar and only deliver the features when they're polished, he said. "These are not quite ready to go to the general public, even though our competitors might have launched them in this state or worse." Walker compared the endeavor to an attempt to swim to Hawaii. "We swam hundreds of miles -- we set a Guinness Book for World Records for swimming distance -- but we still didn't swim to Hawaii," he said. "And we were being jumped on, not for the amazing swimming that we did, but the fact that we didn't get to the destination." He showed examples during the meeting of the technology working: It was able to locate his driver's license number on command and find specific photos of a child. He also demonstrated how the technology could precisely manipulate apps via voice control. It embedded content in an email, added recipients and made other changes. Walker told staff that they should "feel really proud of innovative work" done to develop the personal search feature, despite saying it doesn't always work sufficiently. Still, the company has met other goals for Siri. That includes bringing a Type-to-Siri interface to iOS 18, as well as adding Apple product knowledge to the platform and an improved understanding of customers. It's planning to offer Apple Intelligence in several new languages next month and is working overtime to enable the features for China as part of partnerships with Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and Baidu Inc. Walker said that some staffers may feel "relieved" over the delays. "If you were using these features in the build, you were probably wondering: Are these ready? How do I feel about shipping these to our customers? Is this the right choice?" He added that some employees "might be feeling embarrassed." "You might have co-workers or friends or family asking you what happened, and it doesn't feel good," Walker said. "It's very reasonable to feel all these things." He said others are feeling burnout and that his team will be entitled to time away to recharge to get ready for "plenty of hard work ahead." The executive said he didn't want things to get worse before they got better, saying that special attention will need to be paid to the integration of existing features into iOS 19. Walker ended the meeting upbeat, saying that Apple will "ship the world's greatest virtual assistant." But there's still a long road ahead. The delayed Siri features are just the first step toward modernizing the software. Apple has been planning upgrades for 2027 that will make Siri more conversational, letting it better compete with other AI chatbots, Bloomberg has reported. This will require a new infrastructure. "There's much we will be keeping and there are meaningful things we will be changing," Walker said. The team has "learned a lot together," he said. "We'll make the adjustments that we need to have a better outcome going forward." © 2025 Bloomberg L.P.

Apple Scrambles To Fix Siri's AI Failures After Public Misstep -- Top Executive Admits Marketing It Too Soon Made Things Worse - Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN)

Apple Inc. AAPL is reportedly facing internal turmoil as it struggles to fix major AI failures in Siri, with a top executive calling the delays ugly and embarrassing after the company prematurely marketed features that weren't ready. What Happened: During an all-hands meeting for Apple's Siri division, senior director Robby Walker acknowledged the frustration among employees over the repeated delays of key AI-powered Siri enhancements, reported Bloomberg, citing people familiar with the matter. "This was not one of those situations where we get to show people our plan after it's done," Walker told staff, referring to Apple's demonstration of its AI features at WWDC. "We showed people before." See Also: Jeff Bezos-Backed Anthropic Pushes For Stronger US AI Safeguards, Saying Autocracies Like China, Russia Could Use AI To Expand Their Power Walker admitted that Apple's marketing team made the situation worse by promoting the upcoming Siri features in TV commercials and branding campaigns despite knowing they were not ready for launch. Initially expected in early 2024, the AI-powered Siri enhancements -- designed to improve personal assistant functionality, data integration, and app control -- have been repeatedly delayed due to performance issues. Subscribe to the Benzinga Tech Trends newsletter to get all the latest tech developments delivered to your inbox. Walker said Apple found that the features only worked properly two-thirds to 80% of the time, meaning they failed one out of every three attempts. Apple now aims to roll out the improvements in iOS 19, but Walker warned that even this timeline is uncertain, citing competing priorities within Apple's software and hardware teams. Why It's Important: The delays highlight Apple's ongoing struggles in AI, particularly as competitors like OpenAI, Alphabet Inc.'s GOOG GOOGL Google, Amazon.com, Inc. AMZN and Microsoft Corporation MSFT advance rapidly. Siri has lagged behind rivals, and these setbacks reinforce concerns about Apple's ability to compete in the AI space. Apple's AI missteps come as the company faces a 12.45% stock decline year-to-date amid broader market struggles. Earlier this week, Morgan Stanley raised concerns over Apple's AI delay, cutting its price target from $275 to $252. Meanwhile, in a bid to regain its footing, Apple has reportedly partnered with Alibaba Group Holding Ltd BABA to enhance AI features in iPhones for the Chinese market. This collaboration could be crucial for Apple's efforts to reclaim market share in China. Price Action: Apple's stock closed at $213.49 on Friday, rising 1.82% for the day. However, after-hours trading saw a slight decline of 0.094%, according to Benzinga Pro data. Check out more of Benzinga's Consumer Tech coverage by following this link. Read Next: Apple Reportedly Fights UK Government's 'Unacceptable' Encryption Order Behind Closed Doors -- No Press Or Public Allowed Photo courtesy: Apple AAPLApple Inc$213.291.72%Stock Score Locked: Want to See it? Benzinga Rankings give you vital metrics on any stock - anytime. Reveal Full ScoreEdge RankingsMomentum76.32Growth60.93Quality84.34Value7.80Price TrendShortMediumLongOverviewAMZNAmazon.com Inc$198.012.12%BABAAlibaba Group Holding Ltd$141.071.97%GOOGAlphabet Inc$167.601.74%GOOGLAlphabet Inc$165.501.68%MSFTMicrosoft Corp$387.992.43%Market News and Data brought to you by Benzinga APIs

Apple Is Falling Behind In The AI Race After Delaying Personalized Siri, Despite Features Being Functional, As Competitors Push Ahead With More Advanced AI Assistants

Apple has delayed its forthcoming personal Siri experience until next year, and while it is hurting the end user and the morale of the company's employees, some of its extensions are working. We do not want the new Siri features to turn into another "AirPower" fiasco that failed due to the company facing technical challenges. It is now being reported that some of the Personalized Siri features are 'working' internally to some extent. Apple's senior director of Siri, Robby Walker, who has been working to upgrade the company's digital assistant, has showcased some of the Personalized Siri features internally, and they are slated to be in a working state. The features were demonstrated during an all-hands Siri team meeting, according to Mark Gurman from Bloomberg. Apple was quick to adopt generative AI features, but it has left a mark on the company's image, as it failed to offer a range of features that it originally promised last year. The Personalized Siri features were slated to arrive for users with the iOS 18.4 update, but the dates slipped to May, as speculators suggested that the features were delayed until iOS 18.5. Soon after, the company stated that the enhanced Siri experience would be available in the "coming year." It appears that the features are in a working state but still require a lot of development. John Gruber from Daring Fireball states: He showed examples during the meeting of the technology working: It was able to locate his driver's license number on command and find specific photos of a child. He also demonstrated how the technology could precisely manipulate apps via voice control. It embedded content in an email, added recipients, and made other changes. Even though the feature works, the company has not showcased any of the operations to the public, which only puts a halo effect on the condition of the features. Gruber also claims that the Personalized Siri features are working "up to two-thirds to 80 percent of the time." While the odds are good, it is still not ready or a finished product that delivers the correct results all the time. Apple now has to make sure that the features work perfectly before it can roll them out to the public. Apple has not given users a definite time frame for when the Personalized Siri experience will be available next year, but it has added a fine print to its iPhone 16 product pages, stating that the features are "in development." Siri's personal context understanding, onscreen awareness, and in-app actions are in development and will be available with a future software update. Google and OpenAI are leading the industry with their latest models, and both companies are also integrating their generative AI technologies to power unique features. Google has just announced its Gemini 2.0, and its performance remains to be compared against other leaders in the industry. In comparison, Apple is stuck only at the beginning of its AI endeavors. This only shows Apple's position in the industry. Gurman expects the features to be released next year as soon as possible, but from a broader perspective, Apple is hurting its image and losing the AI race in the industry. We could also see some iOS 19 features delayed as well, which only goes on to show that the company is struggling as far as the software development side of things is concerned.

Apple's AI Crisis Reaches Boiling Point Ahead Of Top 100 Executive Retreat -- Tim Cook And Key Execs Called Out Over Siri Failure By Top Analyst - Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN)

Apple Inc. AAPL is reportedly entering its annual Top 100 executive retreat this week. This comes amid mounting criticism over the company's stalled artificial intelligence efforts. What Happened: Since the era of Steve Jobs, this annual March gathering brings together Apple's 100 most influential executives, reported Bloomberg's Mark Gurman in his latest weekly "Power On" newsletter. He also called out top executives including CEO Tim Cook, marketing heads Greg Joswiak and Bob Borchers, software chief Craig Federighi, and AI lead John Giannandrea, saying all share blame for the failure to deliver. See Also: Jeff Bezos-Backed Anthropic Pushes For Stronger US AI Safeguards, Saying Autocracies Like China, Russia Could Use AI To Expand Their Power "Given the nature of this collective failure, it's unlikely to result in management changes on Cook's executive team. That would mean admitting fault, which Apple hates doing," Gurman said. Previously, it was reported that Apple's Siri chief Robby Walker described the situation as embarrassing, ugly and disappointing, blaming the early marketing push for features that weren't ready. Subscribe to the Benzinga Tech Trends newsletter to get all the latest tech developments delivered to your inbox. Why It's Important: Apple's long-promised Apple Intelligence -- including major upgrades to Siri -- is in disarray, with features delayed indefinitely and internal frustration mounting. Apple is under growing pressure to catch up in the AI race as rivals like OpenAI, Alphabet Inc.'s GOOG GOOGL Google, Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ: META), Amazon.com, Inc. AMZN and Microsoft Corporation MSFT advance rapidly. Apple's AI setbacks coincide with a 12.45% drop in its stock value this year. Last week, Morgan Stanley expressed concerns about the company's AI delays, lowering its price target from $275 to $252. Price Action: Apple shares ended Friday at $213.49, gaining 1.82% during the session. However, in after-hours trading, the stock dipped slightly by 0.07%, according to Benzinga Pro data. Image via Shutterstock Check out more of Benzinga's Consumer Tech coverage by following this link. Read Next: Apple Reportedly Fights UK Government's 'Unacceptable' Encryption Order Behind Closed Doors -- No Press Or Public Allowed AAPLApple Inc$213.29-0.09%Stock Score Locked: Want to See it? Benzinga Rankings give you vital metrics on any stock - anytime. Reveal Full ScoreEdge RankingsMomentum76.32Growth60.93Quality84.34Value7.80Price TrendShortMediumLongOverviewAMZNAmazon.com Inc$198.010.03%GOOGAlphabet Inc$167.60-0.01%GOOGLAlphabet Inc$165.50-%MSFTMicrosoft Corp$387.99-0.15%Market News and Data brought to you by Benzinga APIs

After Severe Backlash Over Personalized Siri Delay, Apple Puts Vision Pro Creator In Charge To Overhaul AI Strategy And Boost Siri's Capabilities Across Devices

Apple's decision to delay the Personalized Siri experience until next year has created a bit of a frenzy inside the company, and the company CEO "has lost confidence in the ability of AI head John Giannandrea to execute on product development, according to a new report. The company is now aiming to shake up its executive team, where the creator of the Vision Pro, Mike Rockwell, will take over the remains of Siri. Apple promised to release its Personalized Siri experience with iOS 18.4, but due to technical challenges and only up to 80 percent of the success margins, it saw fit to postpone the feature altogether until next year. The company has received severe backlash after its decision, which has made Tim Cook lose confidence in the current Siri team led by John Giannandrea. Mike Rockwell, the current vice president of the Vision Products Group and creator of the Vision Pro headset, will take over the Siri team, possibly to fuel the snail growth of the company's virtual assistant. Take note that Giannandrea will not leave the company but will simply be removed from the Siri division. The executive will still oversee research and testing, along with other AI-related technologies. Mike Rockwell, on the flip side, will directly respond to Apple's software chief, Craig Federighi. The latest report from Bloomberg also claims that Giannandrea "long considered Rockwell a potential successor." Other than Rockwell, Mark Gurman also claimed that another senior executive will move to the Siri group. In the past several days, Apple started moving over another senior manager from Rockwell's team -- Aimee Nugent -- to the Siri group. Like Vorrath, she has a reputation for fixing challenging projects. The changes allowed two of Rockwell's trusted executives to evaluate the organization before he became heavily involved. Inside Apple, Rockwell hasn't been shy about criticizing Siri, according to people familiar with the matter. For years, he has pitched senior vice presidents on ideas for overhauling the voice assistant to make it more personalized. He has also been advising the AI group in recent weeks. Even though the Vision Pro did not sell well, based on recent reports and numbers, Mike Rockwell did achieve major milestones in the technical development of the Vision Pro headset. The company recently opened the doors for the Vision Pro headset to feature Apple Intelligence, and the analyst believes that Rockwell can bring great improvements to Siri. With Rockwell gone from the division, Paul Meade will take over the Vision Pro team. Meade previously led hardware engineering for the headset and worked under Rockwell. Siri has always been a problem child for Apple, as it has never been able to beat the competition. With the likes of ChatGPT and Gemini out and about in the market, Apple is only facing troubles with its virtual assistant. It remains to be seen how Rockwell will lift Siri out of the position it is currently in and when we can see the improvements. We will share more details on the subject, so be sure to stick around.

Apple shuffles AI executive ranks in bid to turn around Siri

Apple is undergoing a rare shake-up of its executive ranks, aiming to get its artificial intelligence efforts back on track after months of delays and stumbles, according to people familiar with the situation. CEO Tim Cook has lost confidence in the ability of AI head John Giannandrea to execute on product development, so he's moving over another top executive to help: Vision Pro creator Mike Rockwell. In a new role, Rockwell will be in charge of the Siri virtual assistant, according to the people, who asked not to be identified because the moves haven't been announced. Rockwell will report to software chief Craig Federighi, removing Siri completely from Giannandrea's command. Apple is poised to announce the changes to employees this week. The iPhone maker's senior leaders -- a group known as the Top 100 -- just met at a secretive, annual offsite gathering to discuss the future of the company. Its AI efforts were a key talking point at the summit, Bloomberg News has reported.

Apple Stock Down Over 12% This Year -- Now Tim Cook Is Reportedly Betting On Vision Pro's Mike Rockwell To Fix Siri After Losing Confidence In AI Boss John Giannandrea - Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG), Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL)

Apple Inc. AAPL has been facing mounting pressure from investors and competitors. On Thursday, CEO Tim Cook reportedly reshuffled its AI leadership to revive the struggling Siri assistant and catch up in the generative AI race. What Happened: Apple has moved Mike Rockwell -- the executive behind the Vision Pro headset -- into a new leadership role overseeing Siri, pulling the virtual assistant out from under AI chief John Giannandrea's control, reported Bloomberg, citing people familiar with the matter. Rockwell will now report to Craig Federighi, Apple's senior VP of software engineering, while Giannandrea retains oversight of other AI research initiatives. See Also: Apple's New Passwords App Left Users Exposed To Phishing Attacks For Months Due To Serious HTTP Flaw The shift follows months of delays and missed deadlines for Apple Intelligence. Internally, Apple managers described the situation as ugly, with developers uncertain about when key features will ship. These setbacks reportedly caused Cook to lose confidence in Giannandrea's ability to execute. Subscribe to the Benzinga Tech Trends newsletter to get all the latest tech developments delivered to your inbox. Why It's Important: The leadership shake-up signals Apple's new direction to turn around its AI performance, especially as rivals like Alphabet Inc.'s GOOG GOOGL Google, Microsoft Corporation MSFT, and OpenAI surge ahead. Apple's AI missteps coincide with a 12.20% year-to-date stock decline as the company navigates broader market challenges. Last week, Morgan Stanley flagged concerns about Apple's AI delay, lowering its price target from $275 to $252. Price Action: Apple shares closed Thursday at $214.10, declining 0.53% during the regular session. In after-hours trading, it dropped an addition of 0.19%, according to Benzinga Pro data. Check out more of Benzinga's Consumer Tech coverage by following this link. Image via Shutterstock Read Next: Apple Reportedly Fights UK Government's 'Unacceptable' Encryption Order Behind Closed Doors -- No Press Or Public Allowed AAPLApple Inc$213.70-0.72%Stock Score Locked: Want to See it? Benzinga Rankings give you vital metrics on any stock - anytime. Reveal Full ScoreEdge RankingsMomentum75.50Growth47.14Quality83.02Value8.01Price TrendShortMediumLongOverviewGOOGAlphabet Inc$164.95-0.80%GOOGLAlphabet Inc$162.79-0.67%MSFTMicrosoft Corp$386.99-0.21%Market News and Data brought to you by Benzinga APIs

Tim Cook Loses Confidence in Siri Executive, Vision Pro Chief to Lead Siri Now

Things are going down the hill fast at Apple. The company has been facing flak from users for not delivering Apple Intelligence features as promised. At WWDC 2024, Apple said that more intelligent Siri with personal context will arrive in 2025. However, the company has now delayed the personalized Siri features. In the wake of the controversy, Apple is ready to shake up things at the corporate level according to a report by Mark Gurman. Bloomberg reports that Mike Rockwell, chief executive for Vision Pro development, has now been tasked to head the Siri department. Previously, Siri was looked over by John Giannandrea, who is serving the position of senior vice president Machine Learning and AI Strategy at Apple. Reportedly, Apple CEO Tim Cook has "lost confidence" in Giannandrea after failing to deliver Siri's personalized features. However, he will remain at Apple and will be responsible for AI products and execution except for Siri. Paul Meade will be made the new chief executive for Spatial Computing efforts to replace Mike Rockwell, who will undertake the efforts to expedite Siri features. The shuffle in executive ranks shows that Apple is serious about Siri's underperformance and failing to deliver what it promised. Apple Intelligence, so far, has been a lackluster launch. Today, a lawsuit has been lodged against Apple for falsely advertising Apple Intelligence features and deceiving users who bought the new iPhones for AI features. Troubles are mounting for Apple and hopefully, the executive shift, which will be informed to employees this week, might turn around the story for the trillion dollar company.

Apple's Siri: Once a Pioneer, Now an AI Laggard | PYMNTS.com

When Apple's artificial intelligence (AI) assistant, Siri, debuted in 2011, it was revolutionary for giving users the ability to "talk" to their smartphone. Siri's capabilities were made possible by machine learning, which was state of the art at the time. Today, Siri lags behind competitors such as Amazon's Alexa, Google's Gemini for Android devices, and Samsung's Galaxy AI -- all of which are ahead in incorporating more advanced AI features. Earlier this month, Apple told Reuters that improvements to Siri would be delayed until 2026. Previously, it had said Siri would see enhancements this year. Apple did not give a reason for the delay. The news comes as Amazon recently announced Alexa+, which embeds generative and agentic AI. Robby Walker, head of Siri at Apple, reportedly said that delays and missteps by Siri were "ugly" especially after heavy marketing on its capabilities, according to a Friday Bloomberg report. It is a remarkable fall from grace for Siri that has culminated in a rare move by Apple: demoting the executive in charge. Apple CEO Tim Cook reportedly removed AI head John Giannandrea, the former head of search and AI at Google, from overseeing Siri, according to Bloomberg. Instead, Vision Pro creator Mike Rockwell will take over upgrading Siri. Rockwell will report to software chief Craig Federighi. Giannandrea will still oversee other AI efforts at Apple. The change was made following Apple's secretive Top 100 meeting that gathers its most important executives to an off-site location to chart Apple's course -- an event Apple co-founder Steve Jobs himself created. Bloomberg said the top topic at the meeting was Apple's AI efforts. Read more: Report: Apple Makes Leadership Changes to Speed Development of AI-Powered Siri According to Siri co-designer Luc Julia, an obsession with perfection is likely hampering efforts to roll out an upgraded Siri faster. "They are falling behind because of this fear of not being perfect," said Julia, in a previous interview with PYMNTS earlier this month. Julia said Siri was not actually created by Apple. Rather, nonprofit research and development group SRI International, directed by Julia, developed it. SRI was spun off as a separate company in 2007; Apple acquired Siri in April 2010 and integrated it into the iPhone 4S in 2011. At the time, Apple executives didn't see the opportunity Siri presented. Apple wouldn't have acquired Siri's technology if it weren't for Jobs, who insisted on it, according to Julia, who later joined Apple as a director. "Only one guy wanted it," Luc recalled. "It was Steve Jobs." Julia sees the same cautiousness now among Apple's top management about revamping Siri. "It's the same story we are talking about today, which is, don't go too fast. We'll see if we want to do it." Since Jobs' passing in 2011, new ideas at Apple have been few, and they were hit or miss. The most innovative thing Apple has done since then is the Apple Vision Pro, its augment reality headset, Julia said. The rest of the company is "basically running on what exists." See also: Siri's Original Co-Designer Says Apple's 'Fear of Not Being Perfect' Hampers Siri Revamp In 2013, Oracle Chairman and then-CEO Larry Ellison was asked by CBS how he thought Apple would fare without Jobs. "We conducted the experiment. It's been done. We saw Apple with Steve Jobs," said Ellison, drawing his finger up to mimic rising fortunes, "we saw Apple without Steve Jobs," bringing his finger down to show declining sales. Ellison was referring to the time when Apple's board fired Jobs in 1985 after he lost a power struggle with then-CEO John Sculley. Apple's business began to fail. In 1997, Jobs returned as CEO. Jobs would go on to launch the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad, dominating the music, smartphone and tablet industries. "He's irreplaceable," Ellison said. "They will not be nearly so successful because he's gone."

Apple's "ugly and embarrassing" AI debacle is causing tension in the company

A strange and unwelcome byproduct of the AI era has been the advent of products arriving without all of their promised features available at launch. From the Rabbit R1 to the Humane Pin, we've seen plenty of gadgets land with headline features set to follow in subsequent software updates. It's a dodgy practice that rarely pays off (RIP, Humane) - so it's particularly surprising to see Apple leaning into it too. Apple Intelligence was announced with great fanfare this year, promising, among other things, to completely overhaul the iPhone's tired old voice assistant, Siri. But not only has Apple been forced to concede that Siri's improvements are taking longer than planned, but the whole debacle is said to be causing tension in the company itself. According to Bloomberg, details of a leaked internal meeting at Apple include Siri senior director Robby Walker calling the situation "ugly and embarrassing". And while the features were hoped to be ready in time for iOS 19, the meeting apparently suggested even that isn't guaranteed. Last week, Apple announced in a statement that the Siri features were taking longer than planned. "Siri helps our users find what they need and get things done quickly, and in just the past six months, we've made Siri more conversational, introduced new features like type to Siri and product knowledge, and added an integration with ChatGPT," the company told Daring Fireball. "We've also been working on a more personalised Siri, giving it more awareness of your personal context, as well as the ability to take action for you within and across your apps. It's going to take us longer than we thought to deliver on these features and we anticipate rolling them out in the coming year." Another intriguing aspect of the leaked meeting is how, according to The Verge, it hints at tension in the company, with the advertising and communications team keen to showcase features at last year's WWDC, even though these were "nowhere near ready". Walker acknowledges that Apple's own teases of the software have made matters worse by raising expectations. And with Apple last week pulling an ad showcasing the features, it seems the tension between Apple's marketing and software teams isn't set to abate any time soon. Time will tell whether Apple Intelligence turns out to justify the wait, but right now the whole thing is continuing to bemuse the tech world.

Apple's Siri boss admits to 'ugly' and embarassing AI delays during...

A top Apple executive admitted there has been an "ugly" delay of its Siri digital assistant - and that members of the AI team responsible for the snafu "might be feeling embarrassed." The Cupertino, Calif.-based firm has reportedly postponed plans to release an AI-equipped version of Siri after running into bugs and glitches - a situation that has added to concerns that Apple's AI products are lagging behind those of its Big Tech rivals. Robby Walker, the head of Apple's Siri team, referred to the delays and miscues as "ugly" because the overhaul has already received heavy public promotion, including in TV commercials, Bloomberg reported, citing employees with knowledge of his remarks. "This was not one of these situations where we get to show people our plan after it's done," Walker said during an all-hands meeting earlier this month. "We showed people before." Some employees might feel "relieved" by the delay, while others "might be feeling embarrassed," he added. "You might have co-workers or friends or family asking you what happened, and it doesn't feel good," Walker said. "It's very reasonable to feel all these things." Nevertheless, he praised team members for creating "incredibly impressive" features that would ultimately lead to a strong product. Walker reportedly said that Siri's AI features, which are meant to provide customized assistance based on the user's personal data, is generating bad responses as much as one-third of the time. Originally targeted for a release this spring, the Siri overhaul is not expected to roll out until next year at the earliest, according to Bloomberg, which cited people familiar with the situation. Walker acknowledged that many employees on the team were likely feeling burnt out and noted that the Siri features will ship "as soon as they are ready," the report said. Apple did not immediately respond to The Post's request for comment. For now, Apple reportedly isn't planning to ax any executives who oversaw the AI projects. Apple shares are down nearly 13% since the start of the year - a decline that has occurred alongside broader market turmoil that has also hammered other Big Tech stocks. The stock was flat in early trading Monday. Cook had dubbed the company's plans for "Apple Intelligence" - revealed last June during a heavily choreographed presentation - as a "game changer" for its business. Apple's stock rose to an all-time high in the hours after the announcement, which included details about the planned AI overhaul of Siri. The features are critical to Apple's overall strategy, with upcoming iterations of the iPhone set to lean heavily on AI. The problems began not long after Apple Intelligence rolled out last fall, when its AI-generated summaries began spitting out fake news alerts erroneously based on articles written by outlets like the Washington Post and BBC.

Apple's Siri enhancements face delays, internal dissatisfaction grows - Bloomberg By Investing.com

Investing.com -- Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL). is experiencing significant delays in the development of key enhancements for Siri, its virtual assistant, creating a challenging period for the team. This information comes from senior director Robby Walker, who shared his concerns during a recent all-hands meeting for the Siri division, according to a report from Bloomberg. Walker, who oversees Siri, described the delays as "ugly and embarrassing." He also highlighted the negative impact of prematurely promoting the technology before it was fully developed. The timeline for the launch of these enhancements remains uncertain. Apple's struggle to keep pace in the field of artificial intelligence is exemplified by Siri, which is less advanced than rival systems. The company publicly acknowledged last week that the launch of critical features would be indefinitely postponed. During the internal meeting, Walker acknowledged the possible frustration, disappointment, and embarrassment felt by the team after the postponement of these features. Apple had initially planned to introduce these advancements in spring, but now they are not expected until next year at the earliest. Despite the setbacks, Walker praised the team's efforts in developing "incredibly impressive" features and reaffirmed Apple's commitment to delivering a top-tier virtual assistant to consumers.