Apple CEO John Ternus wants Siri to stop waiting around. In a closed-door meeting in recent weeks, Ternus told software chief Craig Federighi to speed up Apple’s AI roadmap and push past routine Siri fixes, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reported Sunday in his Power On newsletter. Gurman says Apple could make Siri work “more like an agent” as early as next year.
It’s a sharp message from a new chief executive. Ternus took over from Tim Cook on September 1, and his first earnings call as CEO came on November 2. On that call he called Siri AI “the kind of Siri that we always wanted”, then admitted it is “primarily request-based today”. The gap between those two statements is the job Federighi now has to close.
Siri answers. Agents act.
What an agentic Siri would do
Right now Siri waits for a command, runs it, and stops. An agent keeps going. Gurman put the difference in plain terms: OpenAI’s Dots, Meta’s Muse and Grok “can keep track of goals, determine what needs to happen next and continue pursuing objectives without the user initiating every individual step.” Apple wants Siri in that company.
“I believe the company could make Siri more like an agent as early as next year,” Gurman wrote, “not that it has much of a choice, given current consumer and market demands.”
The first steps are already on a schedule, according to Gurman’s reporting. Siri should gain fine-grained control over Apple’s own apps in iOS 27.3, doing things like rotating and cropping images in Photos or organizing tabs in Safari. Gurman expects that update to reach the public as early as December. Third-party app support would follow in the spring, letting Siri place an order through a service like Grubhub or book a table through OpenTable.
Apple laid some of the groundwork last week. Developers can now connect their apps to Siri and test the new features through an App Intents preview in the iOS and macOS 27.3 betas, with App Store submissions planned for spring 2027. The iOS 27.3 beta itself rolled out on November 3, giving Siri access across 15 apps, including Messages, Photos, Safari and Mail.
None of this is confirmed by Apple. Gurman’s account rests on people familiar with the company’s plans, and Apple declined to comment on the report. Treat the dates as a reported roadmap, not a promise.
Why Ternus is pushing now
Ternus isn’t hiding his impatience. Behind closed doors, Gurman reported, the new CEO told Federighi that Apple needs to “accelerate” its software roadmap and “move quickly beyond merely making necessary improvements to Siri”. Bloomberg’s account says Ternus is frustrated by what he sees as a reluctance to embrace AI with the same urgency as competitors.
That frustration has a target. OpenAI’s Dots can already run errands across apps and the web. Meta’s Muse is built to work on tasks over time. Grok has moved toward the same model. Siri, by contrast, still works one request at a time, even after its AI rebuild.
Apple’s own leadership has hinted at the same direction in public, just more cautiously. On the November 2 earnings call, Ternus called agentic capabilities “promising tools for users”, then added a caveat that fits Apple’s pitch: “We just want to make sure that users are aware of what they’re giving access to.” Siri AI, he said, is “built on a modern orchestrator-driven architecture”, which gives Apple room to expand what it can do.
There’s also churn at the top of the project. Mike Rockwell, who created the Vision Pro headset and led the development of Siri AI, continues to seriously consider stepping down, Bloomberg reported. If he goes, Federighi’s team loses the executive who shepherded the Siri rebuild just as the next phase starts.
Why this matters
Apple’s problem isn’t that Siri is bad at answering questions. Its problem is that the job description for a voice assistant changed while Apple was rebuilding it. Users now expect an assistant to finish things, not just fetch things, and the companies setting that expectation are moving fast.
Apple has one advantage nobody else can match: distribution. Siri sits on more than 2 billion active Apple devices, and an agent that works across iPhone apps, on device and through Apple’s private cloud, would reach people who will never download a standalone AI app. If Apple gets this right, Siri stops being the assistant people joke about and becomes the default agent for a huge slice of the public.
Getting it right is the hard part. Agents need broad access to do useful work: your messages, your photos, your calendar, your payment details. Apple has spent years selling privacy as the reason to buy an iPhone, and an agent that reads your inbox to finish a task puts that promise under real pressure. Ternus’s line about users knowing what they’re giving access to sounds like the company already knows where the criticism will come from.
There’s a timing risk too. Gurman’s dates point to a staggered rollout, first-party apps in December, third-party apps in the spring, and full agent behavior some time after that. Each step gives rivals another few months to set the standard, and each delay gives Apple’s critics another data point for the story that Cupertino is always a year behind in AI.
But the alternative is worse for Apple. Shipping a cautious, half-finished agent would confirm the same criticism. Not shipping one at all would leave Siri as a request machine in a market that has moved on to agents. Ternus seems to have decided that speed is the smaller risk, and he has put his software chief on notice to prove it.
Watch the December iOS 27.3 release first. If Siri starts doing real work inside Apple’s own apps, the agent plan is on track. If that slips, the “as early as next year” forecast will start to look like the old Siri promises, the ones Apple made and then quietly walked back.
Sources: Bloomberg, MacRumors, The Verge, Cult of Mac
Frequently asked questions
When could Apple launch an agentic Siri?
Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reports Apple could make Siri work more like an agent as early as next year, with first-party app controls expected in iOS 27.3 and third-party app integration in spring 2027. Apple has not announced a date.
What would an agentic Siri do differently?
Instead of waiting for a command, it would track goals and keep working on them, placing an order or finishing a multi-step task without the user starting every step, like OpenAI’s Dots and Meta’s Muse.
Why is Apple pushing Siri to become an agent now?
CEO John Ternus, who took over on September 1, told software chief Craig Federighi in a closed-door meeting to speed up Apple’s AI roadmap, frustrated that rivals are moving faster on agents.
Is an agentic Siri confirmed?
No. The report rests on Gurman’s sources, and Apple has not announced agentic Siri features or a timeline. On Apple’s November 2 earnings call, Ternus said only that Siri is primarily request-based today, with room to expand.