A deep dive into Apple’s ongoing struggles to rebuild Siri has revealed myriad details on the internal drama between high profile leaders within the company.
Reporting by The Information’s Wayne Ma’s reporting contains a detailed timeline of how Apple got to the point of publicly announcing that Siri 2.0 would be delayed into 2026.
Clash of the Managers
On a high level, the problem appears to be a conflict of managerial styles and backroom ambition between different teams within Apple.
Siri has been under the purview of John Giannandrea, formerly of Google, since 2018. He was hired to run a new AI group which included Siri.
Reportedly, Siri engineers already felt like “second-class citizens” at Apple, a problem that was made worse as they struggled to keep with iOS updates and features being released by Craig Federighi’s software group.
Federighi was placed in charge of the Siri overhaul in March, alongside his number two Mike Rockwell — who created the Apple Vision Pro headset— as Apple attempts to revive its Siri revamp.
The difference between Giannandrea and Federighi appears to be the difference between the tortoise and the hare.
John is allegedly more of a listener and slow mover who lets those underneath him take charge of the work, especially his number two Robby Walker. He reportedly preferred incremental updates and was repeatedly cited as a problem with Siri development.
Meanwhile, Federighi is described as brash and quick but very efficient and knowledgeable.
Supposedly, Giannandrea’s “relaxed culture” lead to other engineers dubbing his AI team: AIMLess.
Apple Intelligence surprise
Surprisingly, according to The Information, most of what we know of as Apple Intelligence is thanks to the software team led by Federighi.
His software group had its own AI team, which reportedly absorbed more AI responsibilities and built within the existing systems.
This was not appreciated by the Siri team, who often felt left out. But the Siri team was apparently very slow to make progress.
In fact, The Information report says it took two whole years for Walker to remove “hey” from the “hey Siri” voice command.
What Apple demoed for Siri during Apple’s WWDC 2024 event is what’s been delayed. This includes Siri’s personal context understanding, onscreen awareness and in-app actions.
The demos included asking Siri when mom’s flight would land, and the voice assistant accessed the person’s email and real-time flight data to provide the updated arrival time.
Siri will also be able to access key info from your text messages, such as providing details of your lunch plans and offering directions.
Ma claims that internally there is optimism that Federighi can turn things around and deliver these features.
‘Whatever it takes’
It’s been reported before, but Apple has an almost maniacal dedication to privacy when it comes to its iPhones and data.
This has lead to things like a struggle within the company on building AI models for Apple Intelligence using third-party LLMs like ChatGPT or its own internal models that wouldn’t have access to the same, generally stolen, datasets that OpenAI uses.
One of the first things Federighi did upon taking over the Siri team was to let engineers access third-party AI.
Ma writes:
In a departure from previous policy, he has instructed Siri’s machine-learning engineers to do whatever it takes to build the best AI features, even if it means using open-source models from other companies in its software products as opposed to Apple’s own models, according to a person familiar with the matter.
The Information reports that previously Apple’s machine-learning engineers were only allowed to use third-party models as a benchmark for their in-house LLMs. A problem when apparently the in-house models were routinely outpaced by OpenAI’s tech.
The crew Federighi has assembled, including Rockwell and Kim Vorrath are known within Apple for getting projects to the finish line in a timely and efficient manner.
Having only just taken over the Siri overhaul, it will still be some time before we see what they’re able to do with Apple’s voice assistant.
Will they beat the 2026 timeline as Federighi attempts to get the “best AI features” into Apple Intelligence? We’ll be watching for signs of progress at WWDC 2025.
