OpenAI or Anthropic could rescue Siri, proving Apple's incompetence in AI

OpenAI or Anthropic could rescue Siri, proving Apple’s incompetence in AI

Christian Zibreg ∙ July 1, 2025

Apple could leverage AI technology from OpenAI or Anthropic instead of in-house models to revitalize its flailing Siri assistant.

There’s nothing telegraphing Apple’s incompetence in AI as a new report from Mark Gurman over at Bloomberg, which is basically an admission that Apple’s large language models developed in-house are lacking. According to the report, Tim Cook & Co. are considering leveraging artificial intelligence technology from Anthropic or OpenAI to power a new version of Siri.

Both companies are reportedly training versions of their large language models for Siri that could run on Apple’s cloud infrastructure for testing. Using these proven large language models could be the easiest way out of this predicament. OpenAI or Anthropic models could give us a version of Siri that would match AI assistants on other platforms like Android phones, Gurman posits.

OpenAI or Anthropic could rescue Siri

Apple has reportedly “talked with both companies about using their large language models for Siri” and has “asked them to train versions of their models that could run on Apple’s cloud infrastructure for testing.”

Gurman writes:

The project to evaluate external models was started by Siri chief Mike Rockwell and software engineering head Craig Federighi. They were given oversight of Siri after the duties were removed from the command of John Giannandrea, the company’s AI chief. He was sidelined in the wake of a tepid response to Apple Intelligence and Siri feature delays.

And:

After multiple rounds of testing, Rockwell and other executives concluded that Anthropic’s technology is most promising for Siri’s needs, the people said. That led Adrian Perica, the company’s vice president of corporate development, to start discussions with Anthropic about using Claude, the people said.

If true, that would be a stark reversal from Apple’s plan to power a new version of Siri with its own technology, called Apple Foundation Models, for its “27” operating systems that will launch in the fall of 2026. Earlier this year, the company had to admit that an AI-infused Siri it promised at 2024’s WWDC would take much longer to arrive, revealing just how far behind others Apple is in the AI race.

A lack of coherent AI vision

However, it doesn’t seem like Apple’s leadership has a clear AI strategy.

People with knowledge of Apple’s AI team say it is operating with a high degree of uncertainty and a lack of clarity, with executives still poring over a number of possible directions. Apple has already approved a multibillion dollar budget for 2026 for running its own models via the cloud but its plans for beyond that remain murky.

And this:

One of Apple’s most senior large language model researchers, Tom Gunter, left last week. He had worked at Apple for about eight years, and some colleagues see him as difficult to replace given his unique skillset and the willingness of Apple’s competitors to pay exponentially more for talent.

And this:

Apple this month also nearly lost the team behind MLX, its key open-source system for developing machine learning models on the latest Apple chips. After the engineers threatened to leave, Apple made counteroffers to retain them — and they’re staying for now.

Perhaps Apple should rely on external AI technology to build the AI-improved version of the assistant promised at the WWDC24 before moving Siri to its own AI models. To that end, Gurman says Apple has considered acquiring Perplexity. Gurman also claims that LLM Siri, which is an internal name for a version of the assistant that uses Apple’s AI models, remains in active development.

Tags AI Anthropic Apple Apple Watch Artificial intelligence Bloomberg Mark Gurman
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