Apple CEO Pushes Siri Agent Overhaul to Match OpenAI, Meta
By Google News AI ·
Apple CEO John Ternus is putting intense pressure on AI chief Craig Federighi to transform Siri into a full-fledged agentic assistant capable of competing with OpenAI's Dots and Meta's Muse, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman.
While Federighi delivered a functional Siri AI on a compressed timeline, the company knows it's falling behind in the race to build powerful AI agents that can autonomously handle complex tasks across apps and services. Apple is scrambling to catch up in the agentic AI wars.
CEO John Ternus isn't satisfied with Siri's current trajectory and is leaning hard on software chief Craig Federighi to deliver something that can actually go toe-to-toe with OpenAI's Dots and Meta's Muse, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reports. The internal push comes at a critical moment.
While Federighi's team managed to ship a working version of Siri AI on what insiders describe as an "incredibly short timeline," Apple executives privately admit they're not keeping pace with rivals who've already deployed AI agents capable of autonomous, multi-step tasks. It's a rare admission of vulnerability from a company that typically sets the industry tempo.
Two significant capability upgrades are headed to Siri in the coming months, according to Gurman's sources. The first will give the assistant granular control over Apple's native apps - think rotating and cropping images directly in Photos, organizing Safari tabs by topic, or managing complex Mail workflows without constant user prompting.
The second wave of improvements will push deeper into automation territory, though specific details remain under wraps. The timing isn't coincidental. OpenAI just closed an $11 billion funding round that values the ChatGPT maker at $1.25 trillion, cementing its position as the world's most valuable startup.
Its Dots agent can already handle sophisticated tasks like booking travel, managing schedules, and coordinating across multiple services with minimal human intervention. Meta, meanwhile, has been aggressively rolling out Muse across its family of apps, giving billions of users access to agentic capabilities. Apple's challenge is architectural as much as it is competitive.
The company built its reputation on tightly controlled, privacy-first experiences, but modern AI agents demand access to vast amounts of user data and cross-app coordination to function effectively. Federighi's team is essentially trying to build a competitive agent while maintaining Apple's privacy guardrails - a technical high-wire act that's proving harder than anticipated.
The pressure from Ternus suggests Apple views agentic AI as existential, not incremental. The company recently began integrating ChatGPT support into its HomeView smart hub, signaling a willingness to partner with rivals when its own technology lags.
But relying on OpenAI for core assistant functionality undermines Apple's ecosystem lock-in and puts user data in third-party hands - exactly the scenario Cupertino has spent decades avoiding. Industry observers note that Apple's historical playbook - wait, watch, then perfect - doesn't work when competitors are shipping transformative capabilities to hundreds of millions of users every quarter.
Amazon just launched its own text-to-shop Alexa feature after blocking Meta's Muse from its platform, showing how quickly the agentic landscape is fragmenting. The internal roadmap acceleration also reflects concerns about developer momentum. If third-party apps optimize for OpenAI…
Originally published by Google News AI
