On May 18, 2025, Bloomberg published a revealing feature detailing the tumultuous journey of Apple’s foray into artificial intelligence (AI), particularly with its Apple Intelligence platform and the once-revolutionary Siri voice assistant. Titled “How Apple Intelligence and Siri AI Went So Wrong,” the article paints a picture of a tech giant grappling with internal missteps, competitive pressures, and a failure to deliver on lofty promises. As Apple prepares for its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) 2025 next month, the company is reportedly downplaying Siri upgrades and focusing on other AI enhancements, signaling a strategic retreat from its earlier ambitions. This blog post examines Apple’s AI struggles, the reasons behind Siri’s decline, and what the company must do to regain its footing in the AI race.
The Rise and Fall of Siri: A Cautionary Tale
When Siri debuted in 2011, shortly before the passing of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, it was hailed as a groundbreaking innovation. The voice assistant felt like a glimpse into the future, embodying Apple’s knack for turning complex technology into user-friendly products. For a brief moment, Apple seemed poised to dominate the AI landscape. However, as competitors like Google and Amazon advanced their own AI assistants—Google Assistant and Alexa—Siri stagnated. By 2025, Siri’s reputation has deteriorated to the point where Apple is actively distancing its broader Apple Intelligence branding from the voice assistant, a tacit admission of its failure to keep pace.
The Bloomberg report highlights several factors contributing to Siri’s decline. Initially, Apple’s leadership underestimated the potential of AI chatbots. John Giannandrea, hired from Google in 2018 to lead Apple’s AI efforts, reportedly believed that users preferred simpler tools and might even want to disable advanced AI features like those offered by OpenAI’s ChatGPT. This misjudgment delayed Apple’s investment in generative AI, leaving the company scrambling to catch up when ChatGPT exploded onto the scene in 2022. Internal sources cited in the report describe Apple’s AI strategy as a “crisis,” with the
company lagging years behind competitors like OpenAI and Alphabet.
Apple Intelligence: A Rocky Rollout
Apple’s response to the AI boom was the launch of its Apple Intelligence platform, first teased in 2024 alongside the iPhone 16. The platform promised to integrate AI deeply into Apple’s ecosystem, offering features like contextual app interactions, an upgraded Siri, and AI-powered tools across iOS, iPadOS, and macOS. However, the rollout has been marred by delays, bugs, and unmet expectations. Internal tests revealed that Apple Intelligence’s chatbot lagged significantly behind ChatGPT, with OpenAI’s model boasting 25% better accuracy. Some features were so buggy that Craig Federighi, Apple’s software chief, encountered issues when testing them on his personal phone before the iOS 18.4 release.
The disconnect between Apple’s product development and marketing teams exacerbated the situation. The company heavily promoted features that were far from ready, leading to the embarrassing withdrawal of iPhone 16 TV ads that touted unavailable capabilities. Promised Siri upgrades, initially expected in early 2025, have been indefinitely delayed, with Bloomberg reporting that significant updates won’t be discussed at WWDC 2025. Instead, Apple is focusing on refining existing Apple Intelligence features and introducing new AI-powered tools, such as a battery optimization feature for iOS 19 and a virtual wellness coach for the Health app, which will analyze data from Apple Watch and other sources to provide health insights.
Internal Challenges and Organizational Missteps
The Bloomberg report points to deep-rooted organizational issues as a key driver of Apple’s AI struggles. The rushed development of Apple Intelligence following ChatGPT’s success led to technical challenges, particularly when engineers attempted to merge Siri’s legacy code with new AI systems. This integration proved disastrous, resulting in hundreds of bugs and a significant engineering mess. Giannandrea has absorbed much of the blame internally, with sources describing Apple’s AI strategy as “sinking for a long time.”
Apple’s cautious approach to AI, rooted in its commitment to user privacy, has also hindered progress. Unlike competitors who leverage vast amounts of user data to train machine learning models, Apple’s privacy-first stance limits the data available for its AI systems. While this aligns with the company’s brand values, it has put Apple at a disadvantage in the generative AI race, where data scale is critical for building robust large language models (LLMs). The company is now working on an “LLM Siri” to address these shortcomings, but this revamped assistant isn’t expected to launch until 2026 at the earliest.
Competitive Pressures and Market Implications
Apple’s AI woes come at a time when the tech industry is undergoing a seismic shift. Companies like OpenAI, Google, and even Nvidia—whose recent Computex 2025 announcements underscored its dominance in AI infrastructure—are setting the pace for innovation. Apple’s delays with Apple Intelligence and Siri threaten not only its reputation in AI but also its broader market position. The iPhone, Apple’s flagship product, faces increasing competition from Android devices that boast more advanced AI features. Moreover, Apple’s ambitions for future products, such as a smart home hub and tabletop robots planned for 2027, hinge on a robust AI foundation—something the company currently lacks.
The decision to separate Siri from the Apple Intelligence brand in marketing efforts reflects a strategic pivot. By downplaying Siri, Apple hopes to shield its broader AI initiatives from the voice assistant’s tarnished reputation. However, this move risks confusing consumers who have long associated Siri with Apple’s AI capabilities. As one commentator on 9to5Mac suggested, Apple may need to ditch both the Siri and Apple Intelligence brands entirely and launch a new, unified AI assistant under a fresh name to reset consumer expectations.
The Path Forward: Can Apple Recover?
Despite its challenges, Apple is not out of the game. The company has a history of turning setbacks into opportunities, and its vast resources and loyal user base provide a strong foundation for recovery. At WWDC 2025, Apple is expected to introduce incremental AI improvements, such as the aforementioned battery optimization tool and virtual wellness coach. These features, while not as flashy as a revamped Siri, demonstrate Apple’s intent to integrate AI more deeply into its ecosystem in practical, user-focused ways.
The development of “LLM Siri” offers a glimmer of hope. By rebuilding Siri from the ground up with advanced language models, Apple aims to create a voice assistant that can compete with the likes of ChatGPT and Google Assistant. However, the company must address its internal dysfunction to ensure a smoother rollout. Better coordination between product development and marketing teams, along with a more realistic timeline for feature releases, will be critical to rebuilding trust with consumers and developers.
Apple’s privacy-first approach, while a hindrance in the short term, could become a long-term differentiator. As concerns about data privacy and AI ethics grow, Apple’s commitment to on-device processing and minimal data collection may resonate with users wary of competitors’ data practices. However, Apple must balance this with the need for competitive AI performance, potentially by investing in federated learning or other privacy-preserving AI techniques.
Conclusion: A Critical Juncture for Apple
Apple’s AI journey has been a humbling experience for a company accustomed to leading the tech industry. The struggles with Apple Intelligence and Siri highlight the challenges of adapting to a rapidly evolving AI landscape, particularly for a company with Apple’s scale and legacy. As the Bloomberg report notes, these setbacks threaten everything from the iPhone’s dominance to Apple’s plans for futuristic products like robots and smart home hubs.
To regain its footing, Apple must learn from its mistakes, streamline its AI development process, and deliver on its promises without overhyping unready features. The upcoming WWDC 2025 will be a pivotal moment for the company to demonstrate progress, even if Siri remains on the back burner. In the long term, Apple’s ability to innovate in AI while staying true to its core values will determine whether it can reclaim its position at the forefront of technology—or continue to play catch-up in a race it once seemed destined to win.
