Apple is expected to unveil a rebuilt Siri with generative AI capabilities and Google Gemini integration at WWDC 2026 on June 8, marking a major shift after years of delayed promises and internal leadership turmoil. The new Siri, reportedly built from scratch for the AI era, will feature a dedicated chatbot-like app interface and deeper context understanding across apps. However, the road to this moment has been marked by missed deadlines, executive confidence losses, and organizational restructuring that underscore Apple's struggle to keep pace with rivals like OpenAI's ChatGPT and Google's Gemini.

What Went Wrong With Apple's Original AI Strategy?

Apple's AI ambitions faced a critical setback in early 2025 when the company conducted a high-stakes internal meeting following the failure of Siri's initial AI upgrade. According to reports, Apple CEO Tim Cook lost confidence in John Giannandrea, the company's artificial intelligence chief, over his ability to execute on product development. This leadership crisis forced Apple to make a dramatic organizational change: Mike Rockwell, who previously led the Vision Pro division, was appointed as the new head of the revamped Siri effort, with Vision Pro hardware engineer Paul Meade stepping into Rockwell's former role.

The delays trace back to WWDC 2024, when Apple announced Apple Intelligence and promised an overhauled Siri capable of understanding context across multiple apps and taking actions on behalf of users. However, several core features, including deeper app integration and cross-app action capabilities, were pushed past the initial iOS 18 launch into subsequent updates. This pattern of missed deadlines has left users and developers waiting longer than expected for the AI-powered assistant Apple promised.

How Does the New Siri Compare to Competitors?

The competitive pressure on Apple has intensified dramatically since 2022. Between 2022 and 2024, OpenAI's ChatGPT exploded in popularity, followed by Google's Gemini and Anthropic's Claude, all offering advanced generative AI capabilities that made Siri appear dated by comparison. Apple's decade-old voice assistant, which debuted with the iPhone 4S in 2011, was designed for simple queries and basic device control, not the complex reasoning and multi-step task execution that modern AI users expect.

At WWDC 2026, Apple is expected to finally address this gap. The company will preview a dedicated Siri app with a chatbot-like interface where users can ask questions, review conversation history, and interact with AI in ways more similar to ChatGPT. The integration of Google's Gemini AI marks a significant strategic pivot, suggesting Apple has chosen to partner with a proven generative AI model rather than rely solely on its own technology.

What Are the Key Features of Apple's New Developer Framework?

Beyond Siri's consumer-facing upgrades, Apple announced a major shift in its developer infrastructure at WWDC 2026. The company is replacing Core ML, its nine-year-old on-device machine learning framework, with a new system called Core AI. This change reflects Apple's recognition that the framework built in 2017 for image classifiers and simple machine learning tasks cannot support the demands of 2026's generative AI applications.

Core AI introduces several capabilities that Core ML lacked:

• Asynchronous Inference: The new framework handles async inference natively, allowing apps to process AI requests without blocking user interactions.
• Large Model Support: Core AI supports large language models and streaming token generation, enabling developers to build AI features that respond in real time.
• Third-Party Model Integration: Developers can now plug in their own models, such as fine-tuned Llama variants or custom Mistral deployments, without being locked to Apple's proprietary format.
• Model Context Protocol Support: Core AI reportedly includes native support for MCP, an open standard developed by Anthropic that allows AI models to act as agents, call tools, and interact with application data through a standardized interface.

The significance of Model Context Protocol support cannot be overstated. MCP is the difference between "AI that answers questions" and "AI that actually does things." Microsoft and Google have already adopted it, and if Apple ships it natively in Core AI, any model running through the framework can interact with an app's data and capabilities without custom integration code for each model.

How Should Developers Prepare for the Transition?

The shift from Core ML to Core AI does not mean existing apps will break immediately. Apple has confirmed that Core ML and Core AI will coexist in iOS 27, with no announced deprecation date for the older framework. However, developers building new AI features in iOS 27 apps, including Siri Extensions, Writing Tools integration, and Foundation Models access, will need to use Core AI from the start.

For developers looking ahead, several practical steps can help ensure readiness for the AI-first future Apple is building:

• Install Xcode 18 Beta: The beta version ships with the iOS 27 SDK and Core AI APIs, allowing developers to familiarize themselves with the new framework before it reaches users in the fall.
• Audit Existing Core ML Usage: Identify which models in your app are performing classification or regression tasks that could eventually be replaced by Foundation Models API calls, even if migration is not urgent.
• Watch Official WWDC Sessions: The sessions titled "What's New in Core AI" and the Core ML migration session will provide the authoritative migration path and prevent developers from guessing at API changes.
• Prioritize New AI Features in Core AI: Any new generative AI functionality added to iOS 27 apps should be built with Core AI from the start, as Core ML does not provide access to the new AI stack.

Core AI's real significance is not that it makes existing apps better, but that it gives developers the infrastructure to build on-device AI agents that actually perform tasks. Apple has made that infrastructure part of the operating system itself.

When Will These Features Actually Reach Users?

While Apple is expected to preview the new Siri and Core AI at WWDC 2026 on June 8, the official rollout of these features may not occur until September 2026, when iOS 27 ships to the public. This timeline means developers and users will have several months to prepare, but also suggests that Apple's AI ambitions remain on a delayed schedule compared to its original promises.

The leadership change, framework overhaul, and delayed rollout paint a picture of an Apple that is serious about catching up in the AI race, but has had to make significant internal adjustments to do so. Whether the new Siri and Core AI framework can close the gap with ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude remains to be seen, but the scale of Apple's reorganization suggests the company views this moment as critical to its future in artificial intelligence.

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