Apple is working on a huge Siri upgrade for iOS 19 and macOS 16

Macworld

Apple is really driving hard in its race to be a top player in AI. The Apple Intelligence features are coming in so hot that they’re being released in stages, taking months after the release of iOS 18. And now a new report says the company is full steam ahead on a new version of Siri that goes well beyond the enhanced, more personal Siri coming this spring.

According to a report from Mark Gurman at Bloomberg, Apple is building a new version of Siri that makes use of more advanced large language models (LLMs), and employees on the project are calling it “LLM Siri.”

The new Siri will be able to hold natural back-and-forth conversations, not unlike the new Advanced Voice Mode of OpenAI’s ChatGPT. It will also handle more sophisticated requests more quickly.

According to the report, Apple is already testing the new Siri as a separate app on iPhones, iPads, and Macs, but it will be released as a replacement for the built-in OS feature we know today. The new Siri is expected to be unveiled in 2025 as part of iOS 19 and macOS 16, but won’t be available at launch—instead, they’ll come in an update early in 2026 (i.e. iOS 19.3 or the like).

Siri is expected to get a big upgrade early in 2025 as part of iOS 18.3 or 18.4. Though the fundamental AI model isn’t changing, that version of Siri will be able to build a personal profile of you based on your on-device data (contacts, Messages, location history, and so on) in order to “know” you better. It will also be able to make use of hundreds of new App Intents, which are hooks that third-party app developers can use to allow Siri to perform functions or access data from within apps on your iPhone, iPad, or Mac.

Next month, Siri will get ChatGPT integration and some new visual intelligence features, but still remains largely the Siri we’ve known for years.

The report doesn’t clarify exactly how the new Siri will work; Apple emphasizes on-device processing for better privacy, speed, and reliability. But advanced LLM models are huge, requiring large amounts of processing and significant RAM. The AI models of Apple Intelligence in iOS 18 already require around 2GB of RAM, which is why they need an iPhone 15 Pro Max or iPhone 16 to run (those are Apple’s only phones with 8GB of total RAM). If Apple is already testing the system on current devices, there’s a good chance your current phone will run it, but it may need a live internet connection to do so.