More details about the expected cadence of Apple’s plans to turn Siri into an AI-driven chatbot are emerging, and Mark Gurman tells us Apple has a two-tier approach in mind. 

The current thinking is that Apple’s Gemini-powered chatbot will arrive in June with iOS 26.4, which will be a significant improvement in itself. “Other than the chatbot interface, the operating systems aren’t getting big changes this year,” Gurman wrote. “Apple is more focused on improving performance and fixing bugs.”

Project Campos

But Apple won’t stop there; it’s also developing a project, codenamed Campos, to bring a more serious chatbot experience in the form of an AI-powered Siri for Macs, iPhone, iPads, and other devices. That particular advance is set to ship with iOS 27 later this year.

Google will provide the AI model, which Apple will exploit in both iterations.

The first update will bring the contextual tools Apple first promised back in 2024, including onscreen awareness. It should also see the introduction of an answer engine, World Knowledge Answers.

The next iteration, part of iOS 27, will have a voice and type interface and be deeply integrated within the OS. It will be able to run apps, change settings, and use personal data, though it may have limited access to such information to protect user privacy.

What this all means is that by the end of the year, Apple should have equipped its products and systems with AI-tools that compete with any other AI technology in the industry. For users, the beauty of this is that you should gain access to these tools and services for the price of your Apple product. Apple seems to be resolute in fighting to ensure that, despite its relatively late entrance into the generative AI (genAI) space, it will not be left behind. 

Getting to this point has been a real struggle for the company.

Power struggles

The lengthy road to AI Apple has traveled included the departure of members of the original AI team and the rise of Apple’s software chief, Craig Federighi, who has taken on direct oversight of the task. The Information reports that, despite adopting Google Gemini, Apple continues to develop its own AI models — particularly those capable of running on device. 

The quest for edge AI seems central to Apple’s future approach, and to support it the company will consider the acquisition of smaller AI firms who can deliver optimized, compressed AI models. The company also intends to work with third-party models to shrink and adapt them to work more fully on Apple’s hardware.

Doing so is important, as the more intelligence Apple can put at the edge, the more it can reduce demand on hosted cloud-based AI, which will reduce infrastructure costs. A second advantage is that enabling on-device AI makes it possible to build and introduce a wide number of AI-augmented products.

An AI pin from Apple?

One such product could arrive this time next year. The Information shares a report that hints at the extent to which AI at Apple may inform the company’s future product releases. It claims Apple intends to release an AirTag-sized smart AI device in 2027. (The concept sounds remarkably like Humane’s discontinued AI pin.)

If the device ever gets released — and the report concedes development is at an early stage — it will have cameras and microphones to give it situational awareness. And I imagine it will be a connected device running the advanced versions of Siri Apple is building now.

Given the wearable nature of the device, it’s hard not to imagine this as yet unconfirmed product will turn out to be Apple’s response to the work its former designer Jony Ive is doing with OpenAI. (I’m not convinced there will be huge demand for AI-driven products that gather video and audio wherever you go; I expect a consumer reaction against this kind of ambient AI, particularly as data brokers begin to aggregate such information.)

All the same, the fact that Apple now seems to have gathered enough momentum to compete with the biggest names in the genAI space suggests that, once again, those who bet against the company in the last couple of years may yet eat a little humble pie.

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