Some artificial intelligence upgrades for Apple’s (AAPL.O) voice assistant, Siri, have been postponed until 2026, the company announced on Friday.
In a statement, Apple said it has been working on making Siri more personalized, enhancing its awareness of user context, and enabling it to take actions across apps. However, the company acknowledged that delivering these features is taking longer than expected and now plans to roll them out next year.
Apple did not provide a specific reason for the delay. Previously, the company had indicated that these features would be available in 2025.
Last year, Apple introduced a suite of AI-powered features under the name Apple Intelligence, which included capabilities such as rewriting emails and summarizing inboxes. Some of the most significant advancements were designed to enhance Siri’s ability to navigate between apps and perform tasks using on-device information.
Apple highlighted examples such as Siri retrieving a podcast recommended by a friend or accessing flight details from a relative based on data stored on the device.
To support its AI initiatives while maintaining user privacy, Apple has been developing a large-scale cloud computing infrastructure powered by its own chips. Siri currently processes 1.5 billion user requests daily, according to the company.
Meanwhile, competitors are also advancing their AI-powered voice assistants. Alphabet’s (GOOGL.O) Google integrated its Gemini model into Google Assistant last year, while Amazon (AMZN.O) recently introduced an AI-driven upgrade to Alexa, offering the new features free for Prime subscribers and at a cost of $19.99 per month for others.
