Ever since Apple announced its AI strategy revamp under the Apple Intelligence banner, there has been a perception that the company is struggling to maintain a swift pace with its lofty ambitions.
There are increasing signs, however, that Apple is making some much-needed headway in this sphere, as per the tidbits gleaned from Apple's Q3 2025 Earnings Call.
Apple Intelligence: A winding road ahead
Do note that Apple has been working to introduce a number of key Apple Intelligence features with its Spring 2026 iOS update (iOS 26.4 most likely). These include:
- In-app Actions
- Siri would be able to carry out context-based tasks within supported apps via voice commands. This includes adding an item to a grocery list, sending a message through the messaging app, or playing music.
- Personal Context Awareness
- Siri would soon be able to leverage personal data to offer tailored services such as scouring the Messages app to find a specific podcast mentioned in a text conversation.
- On-Screen Awareness
- Siri will soon gain the ability to understand the content that is on the screen and perform a number of agentic tasks as a result.
Of course, Apple Mac users can already enjoy most of these features, courtesy of the Sky app, which is basically an AI assistant for macOS that leverages the power of AI models in the following ways:
- Sky operates in a small, floating window that stays on top of your other apps.
- Understands what is on your screen and then acts on the resulting user commands.
- Users can perform actions that span various macOS apps, such as asking Sky to summarize a webpage and then send that summary to a specific contact via the Messages app.
- Users can create bespoke automation scripts, shortcuts, and commands to extend a given app's functionality.
Do note that OpenAI recently acquired Software Applications Incorporated, the company behind the Sky app.
Apple's Tim Cook just revealed the following tidbits about Apple Intelligence and the new Siri:
Coming to the topic at hand, Tim Cook just said that Apple is making "good progress" on the new Siri under the banner of Apple Intelligence, and that the revamped voice assistant remains on course for a 2026 launch.
Additionally, when asked about Apple's plan for integrating other AI models with Siri, Tim Cook responded by stating that Apple’s "intention is to integrate with more people over time." Currently, only OpenAI's ChatGPT is integrated with Apple's Siri under the Apple Intelligence banner.
This strongly suggests that Apple is laying the groundwork for Model Context Protocol (MCP), an open standard launched by Anthropic that allows interoperability between AI models and various applications.
Do note that all is not smooth sailing for Apple Intelligence, however. Bloomberg reported back in August that Apple engineers were struggling to ensure that Siri performed adequately across apps, and in critical scenarios such as banking.
And Ke Yang, who was appointed the head of Apple's Answers, Knowledge and Information (AKI) team only weeks earlier, is now reportedly leaving for a lucrative stint at Meta Platforms Inc.
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