Apple has rebuilt Siri from scratch on Google's AI, and is calling it a privacy-first reset.
After years of incremental updates that left Siri trailing rivals, Apple unveiled Siri AI at WWDC 2026. The new assistant is a ground-up rewrite powered by a custom Google Gemini model. It ships as a standalone app, separate from the existing Siri, with a three-tier privacy architecture governing how requests are handled. Tim Cook made his final WWDC keynote appearance as CEO before handing the role to his successor.
The Google partnership is the real story. Apple has spent years positioning itself as the company that controls the full stack, from silicon to software, but when Siri needed a brain transplant, it reached for a Gemini license from the same company whose Android platform competes directly with iPhone. A three-tier privacy stack is credible engineering, but it is also doing heavy lifting as a trust argument.
Fifteen years ago, Siri was the future. Now Apple is licensing someone else's model to catch up.