Photo courtesy: Apple
Apple’s virtual assistant, Siri, is set to receive a significant upgrade in iOS 18, integrating advanced artificial intelligence features including OpenAI’s large language model, ChatGPT, to enhance its responses and capabilities.
During Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference event on June 10th, several AI-powered enhancements for Siri were announced. These updates are part of Apple Intelligence, the company’s new privacy-focused personal intelligence system. This system aims to enable Siri to perform various actions within apps on behalf of users. For example, Siri will be able to retrieve information from user emails, such as checking a flight arrival time, or locate and extract details from an image of a driver’s licence to fill out a form.
The updated virtual assistant will feature a new design that makes it more visually prominent, with a glowing multi-colored border appearing on the screen when Siri is active. Siri’s language processing has also been improved so it can better understand users even if they stumble over their words.
Additionally, Siri will maintain the context of conversations, allowing it to link related tasks seamlessly. For instance, it can create an event for a specific location after providing weather information for that place.
Users will be able to interact with Siri more intuitively by describing the app or feature they wish to use, with Siri understanding and fetching the relevant data and information. Furthermore, users can type their questions and requests by double-tapping the bottom of the screen and can continue interactions either through typing or voice commands.
Apple Intelligence provides Siri with “on-screen awareness,” enabling it to take action based on information displayed on the screen. Siri’s enhanced in-app actions will also allow it to perform complex tasks using voice commands alone, such as fetching and enhancing images of friends in specific locations or outfits.
With the integration of ChatGPT, Siri will be able to leverage the AI model’s expertise for tasks like providing recipe advice. Siri will ask for user permission before utilising ChatGPT and will display the information on the device screen once approved.
This announcement comes after months of speculation about Apple’s AI strategy, including efforts to develop its own large language model framework. The ChatGPT integration is expected to roll out later this year, while the Siri features powered by Apple Intelligence will enter beta testing for iOS 18 in the US this fall.
Siri, initially impressive when introduced on the iPhone 4S in 2011, has since lagged behind other artificial intelligence tools like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini. However, with these new capabilities and the direct integration of ChatGPT, Siri might finally get the revitalisation it needs to compete in the AI scene.