Apple likely to unveil gen AI Siri with custom Gemini model in March 2026: Report

In June 2024, at the annual World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC), Apple revealed its grand plan of bringing a generative Artificial Intelligence (gen AI)-powered all-new smart Siri assistant. Due to software bugs, it got pushed to 2025. Again, this year, the Cupertino-based company failed to weed out the bugs in Siri, and the launch was pushed to early 2026.

It had plans to work out a partnership with Anthropic and OpenAI to either use Claude AI or ChatGPT to power Siri, but it did not materialise.

Now, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, known for his accurate tracking of Apple products, has revealed that the Cupertino-based tech major will infuse Google's advanced gen AI model Gemini to power Siri.

It will be a custom Gemini AI model that can work on Apple's secure Private Cloud Compute server and meet its stringent user privacy policy.

The Gemini will just run Siri, but won't offer Google's services as such.

If things fall in place as planned, Apple may bring the all-new Siri in March 2026.

Apple has a lot to catch up in the gen AI race

Though iPhone-maker offers propreitary Apple Intelligence-powered features such as Image Playground, Genmoji, Writing Tools, they are not on par with rival applications. For more complex tasks, Apple Intelligence uses OpenAI's ChatGPT. There is a lot of catching up to do for Apple in the gen AI race.

Amid the intense competition, Apple is losing several veteran AI engineers to Meta, which is offering a lucrative seven-figure joining bonus for Mark Zuckerberg's elite Meta AI 'Superintelligence' team.

Apple has plans to foray into the smart home Internet-of-Things (IoT) segment with the launch of a hybrid HomePod with an iPad-like display attached to it.

It was also expected to arrive this year, but got delayed due to bugs in Siri.

Also, reports have emerged about Apple's smart doorbell with FaceID security. But, not sure if it gets launched along with the smarthome device or later.

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