Apple rolls out rebuilt Siri AI with iOS 27
Apple introduced a new version of Siri integrated into iOS 27, featuring deeper device integration and privacy-focused processing, while the technology’s co-founders say the update aligns with their original “do engine” concept.
Apple began deploying an upgraded Siri assistant as part of its iOS 27 release, promising the ability to read on-screen content, operate apps, and draw on data from calendars, messages and other iPhone services. The company says the changes are designed to give Siri a competitive edge against rivals such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini.
Siri’s co-founders, Dag Kittlaus and Adam Cheyer, who left Apple shortly after the 2007 startup was acquired for more than $200 million, said the new capabilities bring the product closer to their original vision of a “do engine” that handles tasks rather than merely answering queries. > “If you want to find a web page, go to a search engine like Google. If you want to get something done, go to a ‘do engine: Siri,’” Cheyer told CNN.
The revamped assistant can, for example, locate a dentist appointment from a confirmation text, retrieve details about a recommended band from a message, and save a recipe to the Siri app for later viewing, according to a CNN beta test. Apple emphasizes its Private Cloud Compute system, which limits data sent to its servers to what is needed for a specific request, and notes that some AI processing also runs on Google Cloud using Gemini models.
Industry observers note that the upgrade arrives four years after ChatGPT’s debut, as competitors like Google and Samsung have already embedded AI tools throughout Android. Kittlaus added that Apple’s focus on its own hardware ecosystem and privacy standards could help the new Siri stand out, though he cautioned that broader adoption may affect third-party app developers whose services could be bypassed by voice-driven workflows.