Apple still struggling with AI-powered Siri despite V2 architecture
Apple first announced an AI-powered Siri with an improved and more robust feature set for iOS 18, but that never happened. Then, the company brought some improvements with iOS 19, though the revamped Siri was still nowhere near its final form. Now the company plans on releasing the new version with iOS 26.4, but even that seems to be questionable, at least according to a well-known industry analyst.
The information comes from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman who posted on X some unfortunate news about the new Siri. Without sharing any details, Gurman stated that some members of the internal testing team have voiced concerns about the performance of the improved voice assistant. This could be in relation to deeper app integration that Apple wants. Early in August, it was reported that Apple engineers were struggling with certain context based in-app actions that were to be introduced with iOS 26.4.
Back when Apple’s Senior Vice President of Software Engineering explained that Siri’s V1 architecture was holding it back, and that it has now been updated to the V2 architecture, fans hoped that for smooth sailing moving forward. That doesn’t seem to be the case as the voice assistant still seems to be struggling.
Whether or not this is more than an architecture limitation, remains to be seen. With the recent departure of Ke Yang, the head of Apple's Answers, Knowledge and Information (AKI) team, there could be something greater that Apple needs to deal with internally.
Currently, iOS 26.1 beta 3 has been released and the final version, iOS 26.1, is expected to launch in the last week of October. iOS 26.4 is quite a few months away with the expected timeline to be spring 2026.
Source(s)
Mark Gurman on X, Tom's Guide, Bloomberg (paywall) (1,2)
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