Could Apple break with the past by renaming Siri at WWDC today?

Macworld

With just hours to go until Apple’s executives hit the virtual stage for the WWDC 2025 keynote, last-minute leaks and rumors are flying. And the latest is especially tasty: it claims that Siri is about to be renamed.

In a long post on X/Twitter, the well-known analyst Ming-Chi Kuo today named his “Three Key Points to Watch at Apple WWDC 2025.” And a sub-point of one of these is “Rebranding Apple Intelligence/Siri.” There’s no further detail on this in the post, and it could mean, for example, referring to the entire Apple Intelligence raft of features as Siri, or tagging on “Powered by Apple Intelligence” when referring to Siri. But most pundits have interpreted this to mean that Apple is considering getting rid of the Siri brand itself.

At first glance that sounds implausible. After all, Apple has spent almost 14 years promoting the Siri brand and encouraging users of almost all its platforms to use the voice assistant at every opportunity. The phrase “Hey Siri” is widely known, and many users even use the abbreviated trigger word “Siri” on its own. (Sometimes they use it without meaning to.) After all that work and expense cementing Siri as an iconic and recognized term, surely it would be madness to switch to something else?

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The problem is that the Siri brand is fundamentally tarnished. It started out fairly strongly but has been far behind its rivals for years, regularly attracting criticism for its outdated features and appalling inaccuracy. Siri is a punchline as much as a brand.

Simply changing the name wouldn’t be enough, of course: if the mistakes keep happening, then the new name would be associated with failure too. But Apple has been working on an updated version of its voice assistant, powered by Apple Intelligence and capable of using contextual knowledge to deliver better results. That was announced at WWDC 2024 and still hasn’t arrived—but if it does appear as part of the WWDC 25 keynote it might be an opportune moment to make a clean break with the past.

Yes, this could be interpreted as an admission of defeat: a rare acknowledgement that something Apple released was less than insanely good. But we’re long past the point where Apple can pretend Siri is fit for purpose, and it can be sensible to admit you’ve got something wrong.

The WWDC 2025 keynote starts today at 10am Pacific Time. You can catch all the announcements, along with expert analysis, right here on Macworld and in our dedicated articles. First, check out our simulated WWDC keynote and read all about what we expect to be announced (with a little humor and some fun). Then dive into the latest rumors and our recaps of the major OS announcements:

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