Google Puts a Date on Siri’s AI Redemption
Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian at Cloud Next '26 [Google / YouTube]
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While it’s not exactly news that Apple has partnered with Google to help build its next-generation Siri, there’s still been some skepticism on when it’s actually coming. After all, Apple has now been promising Siri improvements for nearly two years.
In its typical fashion, Apple remains somewhat silent on this front, with little more than vague comments from Tim Cook and a promise to CNBC that it’s still coming in 2026. Still, we can’t blame folks for having their doubts after Apple has already missed the mark on the new Siri — arguably not once, but twice.
When Apple unveiled a more personalized Siri at its 2024 Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), it promised it as something that would be delivered as part of its Apple Intelligence features in iOS 18. While it didn’t put an exact date on that, the consensus from inside sources is that Apple was targeting iOS 18.4, slated for release in early 2025.
Such things are standard fare for Apple’s WWDC keynotes, which tend to lay out a roadmap of features that come in a series of point releases over the course of several months between major updates. Even the rest of the Apple Intelligence features didn’t start rolling out until iOS 18.1, and weren’t fully in place until iOS 18.3 landed in January 2025.
The more personalized Siri was expected to be the next step, but after iOS 18.4 appeared with no sign of it, Apple was forced to make a rare public admission that it wouldn’t be arriving in iOS 18-dot-anything, but would rather be pushed off until sometime in “the coming year.” In Apple-speak, that meant the next major release — which turned out to be called iOS 26 in a shift to year-based numbering — and although Apple never set a date, all bets were on iOS 26.4.
Sadly, the ghost of iOS past returned. iOS 26.4 came and went with no sign of the new Siri, and when it was nowhere to be seen in the first iOS 26.5 betas, it became clear that iOS 27 could become our last, best hope for a smarter Siri.
It’s understandable that many folks are now having a hard time taking Apple at its word on this one. “Fool me once,” as the old saying goes. However, for whatever it’s worth, Google has now weighed in with its own promise that everything is on track for later this year.
During Google Cloud Next ’26, the search giant’s version of WWDC for its AI and cloud infrastructure services, Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian touted the Apple partnership, specifically naming the “more personalized Siri” and corroborating Apple’s promise that it’s “coming later this year.”
Earlier this year, we announced a monumental partnership with one of the world’s most iconic brands that will bring the power of our technology to users everywhere around the world. We’re collaborating with Apple as a preferred cloud provider to developer the next generation of Apple Foundation models based on Gemini technology. These models will help power future Apple Intelligence features, including a more personalized Siri coming later this year.
Thomas Kurian, Google Cloud CEO
To be fair, Apple is almost certainly much further ahead with Siri than it was at this time last year, when the whole thing was such a hot mess that Apple was forced to make some seismic structural changes that included the elimination of an entire division of the company and the very rare early retirement of a senior vice president.
When Siri missed its anticipated iOS 26.4 debut, the reports were considerably more optimistic. Unlike last year, when the whole thing was still fundamentally broken, the new Siri, built on Google’s models, appears to be quite functional, but simply needs a little more time in the oven. The problems at this point are testing and refinement issues rather than the problems of early 2025 where Siri was reportedly giving flat-out wrong answers more than 30 percent of the time.
After all, it would be pretty shocking to hear that Apple can’t get this figured out with Google’s prowess in the mix. Gemini has already proven itself an extremely capable AI chatbot, so the only real challenge for Apple at this point is to bend the same core models to its own designs; as Kurian points out, Apple isn’t simply licensing Gemini but rather using the same AI code to build its own Apple Foundation models.
All eyes are now on WWDC26 for Apple to redeem itself and show us that the Siri it promised two years ago is coming in iOS 27. However, if recent reports are accurate, it’s expected to give us much more, with a standalone Siri app that will power a full interactive chatbot of its own, akin to Gemini and ChatGPT.
