Apple unveils revamped AI version of Siri – EU launch excluded for now

Privacy as the central message

According to Apple, the new Siri AI will access users' personal information – including emails and text message history – via cloud-based data centers and the internet. It is designed to act contextually, for example by independently suggesting a reminder upon receiving a message about an upcoming meeting, or buying tickets and composing messages on voice command. When creating calendar entries, users can provide details in natural language – for example: «Dienstag um 4 Uhr auf einen Kaffee mit Elena im Café Magic» – and the app extracts the relevant data and creates a suitable entry.

For cloud-based computations, Apple relies on its own «Private Cloud Compute» technology, which is designed to ensure high data protection standards. As the company emphasized, only the most necessary data is transmitted to the cloud; «Nichts wird gespeichert, niemand hat Zugriff, auch nicht Apple», said Rockwell. The majority of requests are processed directly on the device.

Federighi acknowledged that the company harbors reservations about other providers' data protection practices. «Heute versprechen viele KI-Anbieter Datenschutz, aber in den Standardeinstellungen der Chatbots werden Ihre persönlichen Interaktionen gespeichert», he said. «Andere preschen mit KI zurzeit nach vorne ohne Rücksicht auf Datenschutz.» Apple promised never to serve advertising based on AI queries. «Sie als Nutzer haben absolute Kontrolle über Ihre Informationen zu jedem Zeitpunkt», the presentation stated.

No launch in the EU – Apple expresses being «tief enttäuscht»

A central point of the announcement was geographic availability. According to Apple, the new Siri AI will launch later this year initially only in English in the United States; additional languages are to follow «schnell». Neither the European Union nor China will have access to the new Siri at launch. Federighi expressed being «tief enttäuscht» about this and explained that Apple's customers in the EU would not be able to use Siri AI on iPhone or iPad when the new software versions are released later this year.

Federighi cited regulatory reasons as the justification. According to the company, the background is EU competition rules that would require equal treatment of all AI assistants on the iPhone. In Apple's view, such equal treatment would mean that other AI systems would gain the same access to private messages, calendar entries, and emails, which would jeopardize data protection. From the company's perspective, the refusal to «konstruktiv an Lösungen zum Schutz der Privatsphäre und Sicherheit zu arbeiten» is the cause of the lack of availability. Switzerland is not affected by this restriction.

Google as a partner under the hood

For some of the new functions, Apple relies on AI models from competitor Google. In January, the two companies had announced a multi-year collaboration under which Google's Gemini model forms the basis for Apple's AI systems. The financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed. Apple stated that the AI models process data in a private environment to which neither Google nor Apple itself has access. In addition, Apple will pay Google «erhebliche Summen» over the coming years.

At the center of this year's announcements is what Apple had already presented in 2024 under the umbrella term «Apple Intelligence» – albeit with a significant delay. Even back then, the company had promised far-reaching AI functions for Siri, which were not delivered by the end of 2025 because, by its own account, they did not function reliably enough. In early 2026, Apple acknowledged that the planned AI functions were taking significantly longer than expected and that the launch would have to be postponed to the current year. The 2026 WWDC announcement is thus roughly two years later than originally announced.

Restrained reactions on the stock market and in the industry

Observers reacted cautiously. Daniel Newman, CEO of analyst firm Futurum Group, said the announcement fulfilled an obligation but felt uninspiring. «Angesichts der Start- und Stopp-Versuche von Apples KI-Einführung in den letzten Jahren weiss ich nicht, ob sie uns genug Grund gegeben haben, diesmal Vertrauen zu fassen. Der Beweis wird in der Umsetzung liegen müssen», said Newman. Ben Bajarin, CEO of tech research firm Creative Strategies, viewed the update more positively: «Es sieht nach einem ziemlich grossen Upgrade aus. Es wird sich sauber in eine ganze Reihe von Dingen einfügen, die Verbraucherinnen und Verbraucher ohnehin bereits tun.»

Francisco Jeronimo, an analyst at consultancy IDC, saw the strategy as a deliberate counter-design to competitors. Apple seems to want AI to disappear into the operating system rather than putting chatting with an AI front and center. «Wenn Apple KI für die Mehrheitsnutzer natürlich, privat und nützlich erscheinen lässt, wird das nicht nur das eigene Ökosystem stärken. Es könnte neu definieren, was Verbraucherinnen und Verbraucher von jedem Gerät erwarten, das sie nutzen», said Jeronimo.

The announcement did not go down well on the stock market. Apple shares fell by nearly two percent on Monday following the presentation. Despite the perceived delay in the AI area, sales of Apple devices have continued to rise in recent years, and the iPhone maker had, according to market researchers' calculations, dethroned Samsung as king of the smartphone market after many years. Apple's share price has risen by approximately 2,000 percent on a split-adjusted basis over the course of Tim Cook's 15-year tenure as CEO.

Farewell to Tim Cook, appearance by John Ternus

Tim Cook opened and closed the main event on Monday evening with brief remarks but did not appear on stage himself to present the new products. At the beginning of the event, Cook thanked the audience in emotional words; there was no symbolic handover of the baton on stage. In April, Cook had announced that he would hand over the CEO reins to John Ternus on 1 September, a mechanical engineer at Apple responsible for hardware development – including Mac computers and iPhones. Ternus was not seen on stage on Monday evening, but had mixed with attending journalists, bloggers, and influencers the night before. He is expected to present the new iPhone model in the fall.

Cook described Ternus in an April letter as someone with the «mind of an engineer, the soul of an innovator, and the heart to lead with integrity and honor». In his closing remarks on the WWDC stage, Cook said: «Ein paar meiner größten Highlights als Firmenchef waren Events wie diese», adding, «the best is still ahead». The WWDC 2026 thus goes down in history as the last one under Tim Cook's leadership – 15 years after Apple's original Siri saw the light of day, with its launch overshadowed by the death of Apple founder Steve Jobs the following day.

In addition to the new Siri AI, Apple presented further AI-powered features. These include writing aids, the grouping of browser windows, photo enhancements such as the subsequent changing of image cropping and moving of people within an image, the analysis and description of video content from connected security cameras in the Home app, contextual photo suggestions in the Messages app, and the ability to create automations via voice command in the «Shortcuts» app. The design element «Liquid Glass», which had been criticized because its partially translucent controls impaired readability, will also become more customizable. The new operating system versions are called iOS 27, iPadOS 27, and macOS 27 and will be released in the fall with the market launch of the new iPhones. The new AI functions require at least an iPhone 15 Pro, as only these models feature Apple's latest AI chips.

While Apple struggled with Siri issues, Google, developer of the competing mobile operating system Android, and the major iPhone rival Samsung had repeatedly announced new functions for their AI assistants. Google, OpenAI, and Anthropic had achieved successes in AI, according to the article, by being able to draw on significantly more resources and infrastructure such as data centers. With the new Siri AI, Apple told investors, the company is now competitive in the area of AI assistants.

Other conflicts are smoldering in the background: According to Bloomberg reports, Apple harbors reservations about data protection at OpenAI and is reportedly annoyed that OpenAI is working on its own AI device that could compete with the iPhone