// ZDNET — INTELLIGENZA ARTIFICIALE
Ready for a Siri AI agent? Apple under pressure to upgrade its assistant faster
Apple's public-facing satisfaction with the Siri AI launch obscures internal pressures and tensions.
Apple’s recently appointed CEO, John Ternus, is allegedly pushing the company internally to ramp up its AI strategy — including making Siri an AI agent.
Also: My 5 favorite Siri AI ‘onscreen awareness’ tricks
According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, the CEO is publicly pleased with the Siri AI launch, but privately encouraging Craig Federighi, Apple’s SVP of software engineering, to move faster.
“Desiring more and frustrated by what he sees as a reluctance to embrace AI with the same urgency as competitors, Ternus pushed his software chief to accelerate the company’s road map and move quickly beyond merely making necessary improvements to Siri,” Gurman wrote. He added that the tension stems from Federighi’s reputation as an AI skeptic.
The revamped Siri AI is now a much better voice assistant with some helpful features. Gurman noted he thinks Siri AI’s ability to automatically fix your weak passwords is already somewhat agentic behavior, though AI-generated passwords have their own issues.
But Siri AI isn’t yet on par with increasingly autonomous agents from AI-first companies that aim to proactively organize your tasks, use your computer, and write advanced code. Still, those rival agents deliver a patchwork of capabilities: while some, like OpenClaw and Anthropic’s Claude Code, are highly functional, others, like Google’s Gemini Spark, aren’t quite there yet.
Also: I tried replacing Claude Code with a free local AI stack
Regardless, the issue here is time. Despite developing powerful hardware perfectly suited for running local AI models, Apple has remained slower than competitors on the AI software front. Competitors have demonstrated they can make promised agent features a reality, some quicker than others.
Apple’s slower pace in AI has, in the eyes of many, actually benefited its reputation amid a rising tide of public backlash against AI. Some users are frustrated by the software bloat from mediocre or unnecessary AI features, especially as hardware prices skyrocket to accommodate them during a memory shortage. Users also take comfort in Apple’s privacy-first approach to developing AI, which has helped it stand out against other AI products.