Tim Cook took the stage at Apple Park in Cupertino for what is slated to be his last Worldwide Developers Conference as CEO, unveiling a major overhaul of Siri that the company hopes will silence critics who say it has fallen behind rivals in artificial intelligence.
The new Siri AI, announced on Monday, will work across Apple products and apps, featuring a dedicated app similar to those offered by OpenAI and Anthropic. Apple promised the assistant would draw from a user's past interactions, an understanding of images, and broad-world knowledge to become more capable and conversational.
“Apple unveils Siri AI overhaul at Tim Cook's last WWDC, promising privacy-first features as CEO prepares to step down.”
Craig Federighi, Apple's senior vice president of software engineering, delivered an unusually pointed critique of the industry, saying the company rejects "AI for the sake of AI without considering the people it's supposed to be able to serve." He added that Siri AI was designed with privacy in mind "at every step."
Apple also introduced a suite of child safety features amid widespread scrutiny over so-called "nudification" apps, though further details were not provided in the keynote.
Cook, who has led Apple for 15 years, will be succeeded in September by John Ternus. Ternus was a major presence at WWDC but did not speak during the main address.
Ben Wood, chief analyst at FDM CCS Insight, said: "Apple had to address its shortcomings in AI, and WWDC provided some answers. The company must now prove that its privacy-led, integration-first approach can translate into a meaningfully better everyday experience, not just parity with rivals." He added: "Whether it has succeeded or not will come down to user reaction when new capabilities are in their hands."
A beta version of Siri AI will be available later this year for supported devices set to English, but not in the European Union. Apple said: "Over the past several months, EU regulators did not accept any of Apple's proposed solutions to bring Siri AI to the EU while safely supporting other virtual assistants."
Earlier this year, Apple partnered with Google to roll out Apple Foundation Models based on Google's Gemini models and cloud technology. Apple Intelligence already offers writing tools and image editing, but the company has been slow to ship the new Siri.
The question now is whether users will embrace a more helpful Siri — or whether Apple's cautious, privacy-first path still leaves it trailing its tech rivals.