According to Gizmodo, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reports that Apple is just weeks away from demonstrating a new, revamped version of Siri, potentially at an event next month. This new Siri is powered by a Google-built AI model, though Apple internally calls it “Apple Foundation Models version 10” and won’t tip users off to Google’s involvement. The report follows a significant symbolic shift: in early 2026, Google’s parent Alphabet became more valuable than Apple for the first time since 2019, a change many attribute to Apple’s perceived lag in AI. The new Siri is described as a “productivity beast” that can tap into personal data and on-screen content to fulfill complex tasks and hold sustained, conversational dialogues. For Apple, the stakes are incredibly high, as a failed demo would damage its own reputation, not Google’s, despite the partnership.
Siri Has To Be More Than Fine
Look, the current Siri is… fine. For setting a kitchen timer or turning off a smart light? It gets the job done. But that’s the problem. In the age of ChatGPT and Claude, “fine” is a death sentence for a digital assistant. Siri on the iPhone feels like an alien visitor with no memory, constantly surprised by its own existence. Asking it a follow-up question is often an exercise in frustration. Gurman’s description of a Siri that understands on-screen context and your personal data? That’s not an incremental update. That’s the bare minimum for survival now.
Imagine actually looking at a restaurant menu and asking, “Hey Siri, do I have any dietary conflicts here?” Or scanning an email about a meeting and saying, “Add this to my calendar and text my colleague I’ll be 5 minutes late.” That’s useful. That’s a reason to use Siri over just tapping an app icon. But here’s the thing: we’ve been promised a “smarter Siri” for years. The skepticism is earned.
The Google Deal Is A Distraction
Gurman nails it when he says the Apple-Google partnership is “interesting trivia.” He’s right that Apple is a product company, and most users won’t know or care whose model is under the hood. They just want it to work. But this setup is fascinating. Google reportedly gets around $1 billion from Apple for this, win or lose. Apple shoulders all the public risk. If Siri flops, the headlines write themselves: “Apple’s Billion-Dollar AI Still Sucks.”
It also represents a quiet retreat. Remember when Siri leaned too heavily on ChatGPT for some queries? Now, instead of building its own undisputed champion, Apple is licensing a core component from its biggest rival in consumer AI. It’s a pragmatic move, maybe even a smart one to buy time. But it’s not the move of a company that’s leading the charge. For a firm that prides itself on integrated, end-to-end control, outsourcing the brain of your flagship assistant is a huge tell.
The Real Battle Is Context
So what would make this new Siri actually amazing? It’s all about that word Gurman used: context. A large language model that can chat is a commodity now. You can get that from a dozen apps. The magic sauce is deep, seamless, and private integration with the Apple ecosystem. Your photos, your messages, your health data, what’s on your screen right now.
That’s a much harder problem than just having a good chat. It requires incredible engineering to make it fast and reliable. It demands ironclad privacy promises that users actually believe. And it needs a design so intuitive that using Siri feels easier than doing the task yourself. If Apple can crack that, the speculation about ditching partners becomes moot. They’ll have built something uniquely powerful that lives in the hardware, not just the cloud.
The Verdict Is Coming
We’re weeks out from the first real look. No more rumors, no more code dives. A demo. And Apple’s marketing machine will be in full swing. But demos can be faked, or carefully scripted. The real test will be when millions of people get it on their devices and start asking weird, unpredictable, human questions. That’s when we’ll know.
The pressure is immense. After watching Google and Microsoft sprint ahead in AI, and after that market cap milestone slipped away, Apple needs a win. They need to show they’re not just a hardware titan playing catch-up in software intelligence. This new Siri can’t just be better. It has to make people wonder how they ever lived without it. Basically, it can’t just be good. It has to be *Apple* good. We’ll see soon if they still know what that means.
