Apple Reportedly Wants Siri to Work Like an AI Agent as Soon as Next Year

Apple may push Siri toward a more agent-like mode as early as next year, according to a report. How that mode would work is still unclear, and no details, version numbers or dates have surfaced, even in rumors. The report also says new Apple CEO John Ternus told software chief Craig Federighi that the company needs to “speed up” its software work. Today, the new Siri in iOS 27 understands natural requests but still acts only when asked. Rivals such as Meta and OpenAI have already launched agents that work in the background.

The new Siri glowing in the Dynamic Island over an iPhone home screen

Siri got smarter, but it still waits for instructions

The new Siri shipped with iOS 27 in September. It runs on a large language model, and Apple explained at WWDC how the new Siri works with Gemini. It understands free-form requests, remembers what was said earlier in a conversation and answers much like a chatbot.

The assistant keeps track of conversational context and takes the user’s personal data into account. It also now has its own app. With tvOS 27.2, Siri AI arrived in beta on the second- and third-generation Apple TV 4K, where users can search for films in natural speech and ask follow-up questions.

The Siri app icon next to an iPhone showing a list of past conversations with the assistant

The basic principle has not changed, however. The user asks, and Siri acts. This summer, Siri development chief Mike Rockwell himself described the system as one that, for now, works only on request.

In Rockwell’s description, an agent is something that runs in a constant loop: it takes in new information, makes a decision and acts. Without a user command, Siri cannot do any of those three things.

Assistant vs. agent: what is the difference?

The distinction is simple. An assistant carries out a command. An agent is given a goal and decides for itself how to reach it.

Siri listening to a request at the top of an iPhone screen in a black case, with a weather widget and app icons below

Rivals already ship background agents

Two major companies released such agents this autumn. Meta launched Muse on September 8, and OpenAI responded with Dots on September 29. Both run continuously in the background. They keep track of an assigned task, choose the next step themselves and carry the work through to a result without asking the user at every stage. xAI’s Grok works in a similar way.

Here is how this looks in practice:

• Dots can research information while the user sleeps. Before sensitive actions such as changing a password, it stops and waits for a human.
• Muse asks for permission before sending an email or making a purchase. The user can allow the action once, allow it always, or refuse it.

These agents are not cheap. Dots is available only on higher-priced ChatGPT plans, and the Pro subscription costs $100 per month.

By comparison, Siri resembles a polite secretary. It understands speech very well but shows no initiative. For an assistant built into every iPhone, that is no longer enough in late 2026.

Apple’s CEO reportedly asked Federighi to move faster

That may now be changing. According to the report, Apple could move Siri into a mode more like an agent as early as next year, and the company wants to head in that direction. How such a mode would work is unclear. There are no details even at the rumor stage.

The report also describes where the push came from. At a recent closed meeting, Apple CEO John Ternus reportedly told software engineering chief Craig Federighi that the company needs to “speed up” its software work. He also reportedly said Apple should move faster beyond simply bringing Siri up to a necessary minimum. That is a fairly blunt mandate for a company that has improved its assistant in very small steps for years.

An orange iPhone held in a hand with Siri active, next to weather and photo widgets on the home screen

The reported instruction contrasts with Federighi’s own comments this summer, which were noticeably more cautious. He called agents an experimental direction and said Apple first needs to find the right use case for users before shipping anything. He gave no timeline, but he did not rule out Apple’s involvement either. The report suggests the new CEO has decided Apple can no longer wait for the perfect moment.

When could it arrive?

The source author speculates that, given Apple’s usual schedule, major Siri changes would most logically be shown with iOS 28 at WWDC in June 2027. The author stresses that this is a personal guess. Neither the software version nor the date has appeared in the rumors.

Skeptics: fix the timer first

Not everyone welcomed the news. The most popular English-language comments on the rumor were skeptical. Their message was to fix the bugs first and take on agents later. One commenter noted that Siri still cannot always set a simple timer.

That points to the main risk. People would trust an agent with emails, purchases and calendar entries, so it cannot afford to make mistakes as often as a voice assistant. When ordinary Siri gets something wrong, it costs a few seconds. When an agent gets something wrong, it could cost money.

Siri in the Dynamic Island of an orange iPhone, with a grid of standard apps below

Language and regional availability

Availability is another limitation. At launch in September, the new Siri supported only English. iOS 27.2 added French, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese and Spanish. Traditional Chinese, Norwegian, Turkish and Vietnamese are promised by the end of the year. Russian is not on the list. Even in the European Union, Siri AI is expected to arrive several months late. Agent features, whenever they appear, are unlikely to reach Russian-speaking users early.

Direction, not a date

Will Siri become an agent in 2027? Apple appears to want it, and there is now pressure from the top. But the company first showed the new Siri in 2024, and it reached users only with iOS 27. For that reason, the source author suggests treating “next year” as a direction rather than a firm date.