Apple makes a big AI change – here’s how it will power up your iPhone next year
Apple's has made a big AI gear change in recent days and that's set to usher in the Siri power-up for 2026
We know that the updated version of Siri is coming in 2026 thanks to Apple itself, with Tim Cook saying it will “bring a more personalised Siri to users next year.”
Apple’s has made a big AI gear change in recent days with the news that AI lead John Giannandrea is set to leave Apple and be replaced by former Microsoft AI executive Amar Subramanya.
After trying to develop its own AI capabilities, the strong rumor is that Siri will get its long-awaited power up thanks to a custom version of Google’s Gemini.
And that’s where Subramanya comes in – he spent 16 years at Google, where he was head of engineering for Google’s Gemini Assistant.
Apple says: “His deep expertise in both AI and ML research and in integrating that research into products and features will be important to Apple’s ongoing innovation and future Apple Intelligence features.”
Back in November, Bloomberg said that a “custom Gemini model will run on Apple’s Private Cloud compute servers”. This would help deliver answers to those contextual Siri requests Apple announced at WWDC 2024 as part of Apple Intelligence which has since been absent. Apple’s Craig Federigi admitted in August that the company’s work on a new Siri just didn’t cut it, saying to the Wall Street Journal that the AI Siri “didn’t converge in the way, quality-wise, that we needed it to.”
Using Google tech isn’t the huge departure it may seem for Apple; Apple relied on Google in the early days of the iPhone, developing its own stock YouTube app and using Google Maps in the first Maps app.
And, as you may know, Google pays Apple an absolute stack per year to be the default search engine on the iPhone.
Integrating Gemini also might mean that Siri is no longer scrambling for ‘here’s what I found on the web’ results rather than providing native answers.
That update could happen as soon as iOS 26.4. This version of Apple’s latest mobile OS is likely to appear in the spring – but 26.2 is coming in the next few weeks.
Dan Grabham
Editor-in-Chief 
