Apple reportedly gearing up to preview generative AI Siri at WWDC

For years, Siri has essentially been relegated to setting timers, checking the weather, and unhelpfully offering web search results when anything gets slightly complicated. That might finally be about to change.

Apple is reportedly preparing to preview a major overhaul of Siri powered by generative AI at its upcoming WWDC conference. The report comes from developer sources speaking to aggregator account yeux1122 on the South Korean platform Naver.

Smarter conversations and cross-device memory

According to the leak, Apple has recently made meaningful headway integrating generative AI into Siri using its Ajax-based internal model, which Bloomberg's Mark Gurman first reported back in July.

The revamped assistant will reportedly emphasize natural conversation flows and deeper user personalization. More interestingly, the new capabilities are expected to persist across devices, meaning Siri could actually remember conversation context as you switch between your iPhone, iPad, and Mac.

The report also mentions a new Apple-specific creational service, which observers speculate could tie into rumors of AI-enhanced Shortcuts in iOS 18. Furthermore, Apple is said to be building linkages to connect Siri to external third-party services via APIs.

Intriguingly, the leak suggests some advanced AI features may vary depending on subscription status, hinting that Apple could lock certain capabilities behind a paywall like Apple One.

While the Naver account has a mixed track record, it has scored notable hits before, including early details on the third-generation iPhone SE and correctly predicting the delay of M2 MacBook Pros.

Why it matters

Apple has taken a notoriously measured approach while OpenAI, Microsoft, and Google have dominated the generative AI narrative. A revamped Siri at WWDC would mark Apple's official entry into the assistant race in the LLM era.

For users, cross-device conversational memory combined with deep system automation through Shortcuts could turn Siri into a genuinely capable agent rather than an abandoned feature. But the potential catch—gating features behind subscriptions—feels like a risky maneuver. While high server and inference costs make monetization logical, charging for features that competitors often offer for free could alienate users who feel Siri is merely playing catch-up.

In our view, Apple's true competitive edge won't be raw parameter counts, but its tight hardware integration and massive active device base. If Apple can execute fluid on-device context switching and seamless app execution, it could leapfrog clunky chat interfaces and set the standard for what a real mobile AI assistant looks like.