Apple Aims to Turn Siri Into an AI Agent as Early as Next Year
Apple wants Siri to act more like an AI agent as soon as next year, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reports. What it means for iPhone users and iOS 28 work.
Apple wants Siri to work “more like an agent” and could get there as early as next year, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman wrote in his Power On newsletter on Sunday. An agent version of Siri would keep track of a goal and carry out the follow-up steps on its own, so iPhone owners would no longer have to start each step themselves.
The report is a rumor based on what Gurman says he was told. Apple has not announced the feature, and how it would work, or whether the plan goes ahead, is still unknown.
What an agent Siri would do differently
Apple shipped its personalized Siri with iOS 27, meeting goals it first set out in 2024, according to 9to5Mac. That version is smarter and more personal than the older assistant. It still waits for the user to ask, though, and does not take actions proactively.
Several rivals already do. Gurman pointed to OpenAI’s Dots, Meta’s Muse and Grok as assistants that can follow a goal, work out what comes next and keep going without being prompted at every step. 9to5Mac reports that Muse and Grok Bot run on their own virtual machines, handle tasks in the background and then return the results to the user.
Gurman said Apple ultimately wants to move Siri in that direction. In the passage quoted by 9to5Mac, he added that Apple has little choice given current consumer and market demands.
9to5Mac argues that Apple has an advantage in frameworks it has built over the years, such as App Intents, which let apps expose their actions to the system. With those, Siri might not need to rely as heavily on computer use (an AI controlling an app’s screen the way a person would), which could make some tasks cheaper to run.
Pressure from the top
The push may go further than Siri. According to Gurman, Apple CEO John Ternus told software engineering chief Craig Federighi in a closed-door meeting in recent weeks that Apple needs to “accelerate” its software roadmap. Ternus also said the company should move quickly beyond only making necessary fixes to Siri, Gurman reported.
A new way of building iOS 28
Gurman also described a change in how Apple engineers are building iOS 28. Development normally runs in stages, with each stage split into two four-week blocks: one for coding and one for integrating features into the operating system.
For the first cycle of iOS 28, the M1 milestone, Apple gave engineers 6 weeks for coding, exploration and feature work, followed by only 2 weeks of integration. Employees like the change because it leaves more time to try out ideas before they have to be locked in, according to Gurman. 9to5Mac says the shift was likely driven by big advances in agentic coding tools over the past couple of years.
What it means for iPhone users
For people who use Siri today, an agent-style assistant would change the basic pattern of asking for one thing at a time. Instead, Siri could take a goal and work through the steps in the background, the way Dots, Muse and Grok already do on other platforms.
Nothing changes on current iPhones for now. There is no setting to turn on and no confirmed release date, and Gurman gives next year only as the earliest possible timing. The more concrete near-term signal is the reworked development schedule for iOS 28, which Apple’s own engineers are already using.
What to watch next
Gurman’s reporting points to next year as the earliest window for an agent version of Siri. Apple has not commented on the plan.
