Siri is finally more useful, but Apple is already chasing the next AI shift

Apple’s updated Siri has become more useful for retrieving personal information, but its capabilities already appear to be catching up with the market. It can find details in messages and emails, although responses can still be painfully slow.

The article describes queries about a hotel payment, the distance to an appointment, a plumber’s contact details and the name of a public-relations contact. Siri previously often failed on such requests; it now answers some of them accurately.

Siri AI is still officially a beta. At the same time, other companies are developing assistants that do more than answer questions: they open, create and organize files and interact with websites and services.

Assistants are moving beyond answers

Products from OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta and xAI are increasingly carrying out actions for users. They can work with files, email and websites, but generally still require people to provide permissions and detailed context.

The next major step could be an assistant that understands what a user is working on and prepares relevant information in advance. In the article, this is the author’s assessment rather than an announced Apple plan.

Apple tests access to surrounding context

Last month, Apple introduced Siri Recap and Live Rewind features for Apple Watch. The first can automatically summarize conversations throughout the day, while the second can retrieve the last 15 seconds of a conversation.

Both features use the watch’s microphone, potentially giving Siri a new source of personal context. They also raise substantial privacy concerns because conversations include people who may not have agreed to have their words processed by AI.

The features have not yet rolled out, and the article does not confirm a specific reason for the delay. The author links the situation partly to privacy concerns and argues that Apple is better positioned to address them because of the trust it has built around privacy.

The article also includes an advertisement for Memoket Gem, described as a 0.4-ounce wearable AI device with one button and claimed 20-hour battery life. The advertisement says it records conversations and links them over time; the device is available from $168.99, but those details are not Siri or Apple specifications.