9 hours Ago
SAN JOSE: In setback for Apple's efforts to keep up in the AI race with rival tech giants, the next generation of its virtual assistant Siri is being pushed back until next year, Apple is reported to have said. Apple's voice assistant, increasingly falling behind as chatbots like ChatGPT, Gemini and DeepSeek make leaps and bounds, had been widely expected gain new far-reaching AI-powered features in the first half of 2025. "It’s going to take us longer than we thought to deliver on these features and we anticipate rolling them out in the coming year," tech blog Daring Fireball quoted Apple spokeswoman Jacqueline Roy as saying.
Apple plans for its future Siri to be particularly helpful for users because its software has access to users' personal information and can be active across different apps. Rivals in the smartphone space like Google and Samsung are also seeking to anchor their AI features in the everyday lives of users, while Amazon is preparing to open early access to an AI version of the Alexa assistant software in the US. Apple has already played up its AI offerings under the name Apple Intelligence.
So far, the software can rephrase and summarise texts and create new emoji from user descriptions. Apple Intelligence has rolled out in several English-speaking countries and set to arrive in further markets from April onwards. – dpa/Tribune News Service.
