Cupertino, Calif. — Apple Races to Make Siri More Agentic

CUPERTINO, Calif. — Apple executives are pressing the company's artificial intelligence team to speed up Siri's roadmap so the voice assistant can keep pace with newer "agentic" AI tools from OpenAI and Meta, according to a Nov. 8 report from Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, cited by The Verge. Gurman reports that John Ternus is pushing Apple's AI chief, Craig Federighi, to deliver a more capable assistant even though Federighi has already shipped a functional Siri AI update on what The Verge describes as an incredibly short timeline.

The pressure points to two concrete changes coming to iPhones in the next several months, plus a longer-term shift in what Siri is built to do.

What changes with iOS 27.3?

The first upgrade gives Siri finer control over Apple's own apps. Users will be able to ask Siri to rotate and crop a photo inside the Photos app or organize open tabs in Safari, according to The Verge's report on Gurman's reporting. Those features are expected to arrive with iOS 27.3, the outlet reports, meaning the update will land as a routine software release rather than a flagship product launch. No exact release date for iOS 27.3 was given in the report.

For iPhone owners, the practical change is small but real: tasks that currently require tapping through menus, like picking a photo filter or closing a dozen browser tabs, could be handled with a spoken request instead.

What happens when Siri reaches third-party apps?

The bigger shift comes later. The Verge reports that Siri's connection to outside apps, not just Apple's own software, is expected to arrive in the spring, according to Gurman. That would let a user ask Siri to place a food order through Grubhub or book a table through OpenTable without opening either app directly.

That timeline matters because it is also when Apple would be tested against rivals that already let their assistants act across multiple apps and services. The report names OpenAI's Dots and Meta's Muse as the tools Apple is trying to catch up with.

Why is Apple racing now?

The Verge's report frames the urgency as coming from the top of Apple's product organization. Ternus is described as pressuring Federighi to accelerate the roadmap, even as Apple's own team does not believe it is keeping pace with competitors, according to Gurman's reporting. That internal assessment, relayed through Gurman, suggests Apple sees itself behind on a feature set the rest of the AI industry has already started shipping.

The Verge notes that Dots, Muse and Grok can already keep track of goals and figure out what needs to happen next, continuing to pursue an objective without the user restating it each time. Siri, by contrast, has so far been limited to responding to individual commands rather than carrying a task forward on its own.

What does "agentic" mean for Siri's future?

"Agentic" is the industry's shorthand for software that does not just answer a question but keeps working toward a goal, checking in as needed. For Siri, that would mean something like being told to plan a weekend trip and having the assistant handle reservations, reminders and follow-up steps over several days, rather than answering a single query and stopping. The Verge's report indicates Apple is aiming in that direction, though the near-term releases — app-level control in Photos and Safari, then third-party app access — are more limited than full task autonomy.

Voice remains central to how any of this works. As assistants get asked to do more, the quality of voice recognition and natural-sounding speech becomes part of the product experience; tools like ElevenLabs have built businesses specifically around that layer of voice AI, outside any single phone maker's ecosystem.

What should iPhone users expect Monday morning?

Nothing changes immediately. The Verge's report describes features tied to iOS 27.3 and a "spring" rollout for third-party app support, not an update available now. Apple has not published a software update describing these capabilities, and The Verge's report is based on Gurman's sourcing rather than an Apple announcement.

For now, the practical takeaway for Siri users is a timeline: incremental control over Apple's own apps first, outside services like Grubhub and OpenTable later, and a stated company goal of building toward the kind of ongoing, multistep task handling that OpenAI's and Meta's tools already offer, according to the report.

Artiglio is A coming-soon iPhone chief of staff for briefings and drafts. Not on the App Store yet.