Apple’s fully formed AI version of Siri won’t be ready until September according to Google – it’s Gemini model will be Apple’s Foundation Model. And that means it won’t be in users hands after more than two years after it was announced.
Speaking at Google’s Cloud Next 26 event, Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian – standing in front of huge Apple logo on the screen behind him – said a more personalised Siri will be coming later in 2026.
“Earlier this year we announced a monumental partnership with one of the world’s most iconic brands that will bring the power of our technology to users everywhere around the world,” Kurian said in his keynote.
“We’re collaborating with Apple as a preferred cloud provider to develop the next generation of Apple Foundation models based on Gemini technology.
“These models will help power future Apple Intelligence features, including a more personalised Siri, coming later this year.”
In January, Apple and Google simultaneously announced their collaboration with the announcement that Apple Foundation Models will be supported by Gemini.
Before this partnership, the industry and Apple’s billions of customers were under the impression Apple was working on its own AI model to power a more personalised Siri which was announced at the Worldwide Developers Conference in 2024.
During that WWDC 2024 keynote there was a number of ambitious Siri features announced including Personal Context which gives Siri the ability to look at photos, messages and your calendar to answer queries and organise your time and Semantic Indexing which can look at data from emails, images, apps you’ve used and websites you’ve visited.
Also showcased was App Control to control features and perform tasks using Siri along with On-Screen Awareness so you Siri can understand the content within your apps like numbers and addresses and act on your requests.
That means Siri could create a contact card from a message and set calendar notes based on dates discussed in your messages.
The demo also showed Siri being used to organise a lunch booking while keeping track of an incoming flight.
But a year later at WWDC 2025, Apple admitted the personalised Siri features were still at the level that met Apple’s high standards with a delay until 2026.
With WWDC 2026 less than two months away we can only assume the updated Siri will a central part of the new iOS 27 which will announced at the opening keynote.
And it will likely become available in September around the time Apple released its new iPhones – which will be preloaded with iOS 27.
For current users iOS 27 update will probably become available as an update at the same time.
What we don’t know is how far Apple will go in its release and whether it will just release at the new Siri features at once or stagger each of the features to ensure they are fully formed.
Either way, Apple customers have already been very patient with the release.
Hopefully that patience will be rewarded with the features and convenience we were promised more than two years ago.
