Apple Is Betting Everything on a Voice-Controlled AI Siri

Liquid Glass is a detour. This fall, consumer attention will be fixated on the digital viscous and reflective properties of the new, well, liquid and glass-like design language that Apple introduced at WWDC for its software platforms, including iOS, macOS, watchOS, etc. But behind the scenes, Apple is racing forward on what could actually move the needle for the tech giant’s future.

Writing for his weekly Power On newsletter, Bloomberg’s Apple scoop machine, Mark Gurman, says Apple is working on a supercharged Siri with vastly improved voice controls. Currently, you can ask Siri to do something, and it’s a total crapshoot what the voice assistant will do—maybe it’ll answer a question, or maybe it’ll perform an action for you like setting an alarm. Or maybe Siri won’t do anything on your behalf because its backend “brain” seems to have degraded over the years to the point where it couldn’t even answer what month it was correctly. But a new Siri—powered by AI—could finally make the promise of voice controls performing actions within apps a reality.

Really can’t make this stuff up pic.twitter.com/NlLROGekdi

— Ray Wong (@raywongy) March 20, 2025

Instead of opening an app and then tapping and swiping around its increasingly labyrinthine UI that’s designed to keep you from leaving like some Las Vegas casino, you’d simply tell Siri to do something for you. Per Gurman:

With nothing but your voice, you’ll be able to tell Siri to find a specific photo, edit it and send it off. Or comment on an Instagram post. Or scroll a shopping app and add something to your cart. Or log in to a service without touching the screen. Essentially, Siri could operate your apps like you would — with precision, inside their own interfaces.

Using voice controls via Siri to navigate and operate apps would be a major shift from using a touchscreen and, as Gurman astutely notes, would fulfill the original vision that Apple had for Siri. When Siri launched on the iPhone 4S in 2011, it marked the beginning for voice-controlled digital assistants at scale (Apple scale). But over the past almost 15 years, Apple has fumbled the digital assistant over and over, until it botched Siri’s overhaul last year by pre-announcing AI-powered Siri features it couldn’t (and still hasn’t yet) delivered on.

This new voice-controlled Siri is reportedly a “top priority” within the company and, if launched functioning properly, could catapult Apple straight to the top of the AI revolution that’s currently transforming all aspects of consumer technology and life as we know it. Achieving perfect voice controls that successfully work on command is no easy feat. Gurman says Apple plans to roll out new Siri’s improved voice controls with caution:

The plan now is to ship the feature alongside a broader Siri infrastructure overhaul in the spring and market it heavily. But there’s some concern inside the company, I’m told. Engineers have been struggling to ensure that the system works with a sufficient number of apps and is accurate enough to handle high-stakes scenarios. There are worries about the software failing in categories where precision is nonnegotiable, like in health or banking apps.

Apple, Amazon, Google, and more have spent the past decade trying to basically invent the “Computer” and “Communicator” from Star Trek. The results have been mixed. Amazon’s Alexa, Google’s Assistant, and Apple’s Siri all started out strong, but as their capabilities grew beyond setting basic timers and alarms, playing music, and checking the weather, it became increasingly clear that the voice assistants didn’t have the data and intelligence to pull off more specific and complicated operations that just work better (and faster) within regular mobile apps. You know things are bad when Google’s Assistant won’t even turn on people’s smart lights or control smart homes anymore, and there may be a possible class action lawsuit on the way.

It’s not just iPhone and iPad that would benefit from an AI-powered, voice-controlled Siri—all of Apple’s devices would, including devices with big screens like Macs, tiny displays like the Apple Watch where touchscreen input is difficult, and touchless or screenless devices like Apple TV and HomePod. Apple has a real opportunity to deliver the voice computer that every nerd has dreamed of.

Apple is still selling tons and tons of hardware every quarter, but if it wants to rocket to a new height—one that moves even more units for future devices and signals to everyone that it’s still The Innovator that the entire tech industry looks to—it’ll need to nail these new voice controls. Apple cannot afford to screw this new Siri up. The consequences will be damaging, and consumers will look elsewhere, like OpenAI and whatever AI hardware former Apple design god Jony Ive is cooking up with Sam Altman, if the new Siri voice controls don’t live up to expectations.