Siri overhaul revealed: Apple to let users pick their own AI assistant inside iOS 27

Apple is planning to open Siri to third-party artificial intelligence systems to bolster the iPhone's value proposition, as it is falling far behind in the race to develop the best AI-powered personal assistant.

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Apple is lagging behind the competition in rolling out its own in-house AI-powered service, as the company initially intended that its AI-infused Siri upgrade would be released alongside the iPhone 16 line-up. However, due to technical difficulties and the product not meeting Apple's exceptionally high standards for uniformity across its product line, the company delayed the release of the new, smarter version of Siri until sometime in 2026.

Now, a report from Apple insider and Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman has revealed that the Cupertino company is planning to open up Siri to artificial intelligence systems as part of its Siri overhaul in the upcoming iOS 27 operating system update. Notably, Siri is already capable of pulling up ChatGPT for any answers that it can't work out on-device, but following this update, users will reportedly be able to select from other competing services.

Gurman writes that Apple is developing new tools to enable AI chatbot apps installed via the App Store to integrate with Siri, allowing the chatbots to work with an upcoming Siri app and other features within the Apple Intelligence suite.

So, how does this work in practice? If a user queries Siri and the answer requires an AI service, such as ChatGPT, the user can then select from the AI chatbots installed on their device. For example, if Google's Gemini or Anthropic's Claude is installed, the user can select those services from within the Siri voice assistant.