Apple has delayed new artificial intelligence features for its Siri voice assistant, undercutting its effort to compete with offerings from rivals Google and Amazon.
The iPhone maker confirmed in a statement on Friday that it would take “longer than we thought” to deliver capabilities teased last year when the company unveiled Apple Intelligence — a major push to infuse its popular products with generative AI.
At its flagship developers’ event in June, Apple said Siri’s new attributes would make it smarter, more deeply integrated with the device and personalised to the user.
The Cupertino, California, tech group has already taken steps to integrate Siri with OpenAI’s ChatGPT and build out a dedicated cloud infrastructure to process user requests involving privacy and security.
But other features the company initially promised since then have been delayed. These include “on-screen awareness”, such as Siri identifying an address in a message thread and adding it to a user’s contacts when asked.
The aim, which is being pursued across the smartphone industry, is to move to more voice-based interaction rather than manual tapping.
Another delayed feature is the ability for Siri to take actions inside of apps, such as requesting a specific photo of someone in a user’s contacts.
On Friday the company said it now anticipated rolling these features out “in the coming year”, suggesting they could be delayed until as late as 2026. Apple did not clarify why the features had been delayed.
It marks the latest in a series of setbacks in the company’s software road map. Apple recently had to pull AI news notification summaries due to errors and received backlash last week over a glitch in its voice-to-text feature.
The consumer hardware industry is leaning heavily into AI “agents”, hoping they can deliver a competitive advantage in making their products appeal to consumers.
Google’s Gemini, for example, has been integrated into Apple competitor Samsung’s latest line of smartphones, with a recent televised advertising campaign showing off the abilities of Samsung’s S25 Ultra, launched in January. OpenAI has also pushed out its own voice features for ChatGPT.
Last week Amazon unveiled a long-delayed “conversational” version of its own voice assistant, Alexa, promising more natural and flowing conversations with the AI-powered chatbot.
More than two years after ChatGPT kick-started a new AI race between Big Tech companies, Apple is lagging behind both its immediate rivals Google and Amazon, as well as AI start-ups including Anthropic and xAI, in offering the smartest AI features to consumers.
Analysts have identified Apple’s move to overhaul its 14-year-old voice assistant as a potential “killer” feature, which could convince users to upgrade to new devices.
Apple Intelligence remains available only in English and local variants, limiting its reach among the company’s vast global user base. More languages are scheduled for release next month, an update the company still expects to deliver on time.
Analysts tracking sales of the iPhone 16 have not seen evidence that its new AI capabilities have boosted sales.
Gene Munster, managing partner at Deepwater Asset Management, recently said Apple Intelligence had marked a rare “false start” for the company, with it rushing to keep pace with a wave of AI enthusiasm.
In China, where Apple has recently lost ground to competitors, it has had to navigate regulatory requirements as it seeks to partner with local AI providers. A partnership with Chinese tech company Alibaba announced last month was seen as a potential breakthrough.