Apple Delays Large Language Models-Powered Siri Indefinitely: A Disappointment, A Failure, An Embarrassment

Siri is Apple’s voice-activated virtual assistant, introduced in 2011 with the iPhone 4S. It uses natural language processing (NLP) to answer questions, perform tasks, and interact with Apple’s ecosystem.

Initially developed by SRI International’s AI research lab and later acquired by Apple, Siri was the very thing that set the stage for modern voice assistants like Google Assistant and Alexa.

But since Large Language Models promise a much more advanced assistant, and that Google has gone far ahead with Gemini, Apple that is left behind, seemingly admit its defeat.

This time, the Cupertino-based company has updated its website with a disclaimer on iPhone marketing pages, noting a delay in the release of its upcoming AI-powered Siri features.

The new Siri features are designed to help users easily retrieve information from conversations with friends and family, such as flight details or book recommendations, by scanning Messages, Mail, and other apps.

Additionally, on-screen awareness will allow users to take action within the current app—for example, asking Siri to “edit this image to make it pop” while viewing a photo in the Photos app.

The company first demonstrated these features during its Worldwide Developers Conference in June 2024, part of an unveiling of the Apple Intelligence AI platform.

But following rumors of development challenges, Apple officially confirmed the delay in a press statement.

The company acknowledged the setback, stating, "it’s going to take us longer than we thought to deliver on these features and we anticipate rolling them out in the coming year."

The same disclaimer wording is found across pages for iPhone 16e, iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro, iPad and more.

Essentially, anywhere where these features were previously advertised without even an asterisk about their yet-to-be-released availability.

Although Apple has obviously not provided a more specific window, people are still expecting this major Siri upgrade in a "future software update."

Read: Apple Introduces The iPhone 16 Pro Series, With 'Apple Intelligence' As The Highlight

Since the arrival of ChatGPT from OpenAI, major Apple rivals literally took off with their LLM-powered AIs and tools, Apple that was already late in the trend, experienced quite a struggle to finish developing the features and the enhancements.

Since then, Apple engineers have been racing to fix a rash of bugs in the project.

The work has been unsuccessful, according to people involved in the efforts, and they now believe the features won’t be released until next year at the earliest.

In the lead-up to the delay, software chief Craig Federighi and other executives voiced strong concerns internally that the features didn’t work properly — or as advertised — in their personal testing, as said by anonymous sources from the company.

Some within Apple’s AI division even believe that work on the features could be scrapped altogether, and that Apple may have to rebuild the functions from scratch.

The delay reportedly had Apple employees questioning whether the company should change the leadership of the AI group.

Apple had been planning to make Siri more ChatGPT-like and conversational.

Apple has been trying to push its AI features to the public, and had even marketed it heavily.

With the delay being official conformed, the move certainly embarrassed Apple to a degree that it gives proof that the company simply cannot compete in this bandwagon.

At least at this time.