First, Apple scaled back its World Knowledge Answers AI project, as well as an AI-driven overhaul of the Safari browser and the Apple Health app. Now, it seems the Cupertino giant is rolling back the launch of the new Gemini-backed Siri, resorting to a gradual feature drop approach instead.
Apple's launch of the new Gemini-backed Siri hits roadblocks
As we've been noting ad nauseum over the past couple of weeks, Apple has formally selected Google's Gemini to power the next generation of its on-device Foundation Models as well as a revamped version of Siri, which would bring the much-delayed in-app actions, personal context awareness, and on-screen awareness to its bespoke voice assistant, enabling a wide variety of agentic actions across apps, based on personal data and on-screen content.
At the backend, Apple is planning to deploy a gigantic 1.2-trillion-parameter custom Gemini AI model on its cloud servers to power Siri's new AI features under the overarching banner of Apple Intelligence - where relatively simple AI tasks are performed by using on-device models and the computational resources of the device itself, while the more complex tasks are offloaded to Apple's private cloud servers using encrypted and stateless data for subsequent inference.
Initially, Apple was expected to launch this revamped Siri in the second half of February, as per a tidbit shared by the prolific tipster, Mark Gurman, who later refined the expected launch date to February 23.
Now, however, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman is out with yet another scoop, declaring that Apple's planned launch of a revamped Siri has hit snags. Consequently, the Cupertino giant is now working to gradually roll out the underlying features over the course of the ongoing year:
"After planning to include the new capabilities in iOS 26.4 — an operating system update slated for March — Apple is now working to spread them out over future versions, according to people familiar with the matter. That would mean possibly postponing at least some features until at least iOS 26.5, due in May, and iOS 27, which comes out in September."
Gurman then goes on to note:
"One feature is especially likely to slip: the expanded ability for Siri to tap into personal data. That technology would let users ask the assistant to, say, search old text messages to locate a podcast shared by a friend and immediately play it."
What's more, with Siri's in-app actions feature also encountering problems, it seems Apple won't be able to make a grand show of launching the revamped Siri in one go.
About the author: Writing is my one incontrovertible passion. Over the past six years, he has authored over 2,200 distinct articles on financial and tech-related topics, spanning nearly 1 million words. And he has been a member of Wcctech mobile team since 2025. As an alumnus of the University of Toronto, Rotman Commerce Program, I bring nuance, in-depth knowledge, and a unique perspective to every topic that I cover. When I'm not writing, I'm traveling the world, exploring hidden confectionaries and restaurants as an aspiring food connoisseur.
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