When you think about the tech companies leading the AI race, Apple is pretty much at the bottom of the list. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, as far as I’m concerned. From where I’m sitting, many of us couldn’t care less about the latest AI features companies are shoving into their products—we just want the products we actually use to work, and work well.
But strictly focusing on AI progress, Apple is far behind rivals like Google and Microsoft. While Android and Windows are full of AI features, either through Google’s Gemini or OpenAI’s GPT models, Apple’s first-party AI advances are much more limited. Both Google and Microsoft promote their AI assistants as a cornerstone of their marketing strategies; meanwhile, Apple pulled it AI Siri commercial, as its promised upgrades kept getting delayed.
That’s not to say there aren’t any AI features here—far from it. Since iOS 18, Apple has rolled out AI features under the Apple Intelligence umbrella, including things like Image Playground, AI image editing, and Writing Tools. But, again, these features are not selling iPhones, and it seems like Apple knows it. The company appears to be doing more AI work behind the scenes than in front of it these days.
Despite all this, the company is still making serious in-roads with AI. In fact, the company is planning three key new AI features, at least according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman.
AI Siri
Remember how I said Apple’s AI Siri upgrade keeps getting delayed? Well, as it happens, AI Siri might be here sooner than later—at least, in part. According to Gurman, Apple plans to roll out “a new Siri” with iOS 26.4, while the assistant will get a “redesign” with next year’s iOS 27.
If you recall, Apple promised an AI-powered Siri with iOS 18 that was smarter than any iteration of Siri that had come before. This AI Siri was highly contextual, understanding what you meant in your requests without you needing to be hyper-specific. In addition, the assistant could pull information from a variety of sources, such as messages or emails, to fulfill requests, and even had an agent mode to take actions on your behalf. This is similar to how AI browsers let you ask the assistant to do things on the web for you. It’s objectively futuristic, to be sure, but not necessarily useful—nor is it secure.
As it happens, Apple had a lot of trouble actually getting those features to work. The company’s new Siri is an extreme engineering puzzle that wasn’t solved by iOS 18’s release, and was delayed through iOS 26.0. If the schedule holds, those changes should be coming to 26.4, and may even be powered in part by Google’s Gemini model. That said, iOS 26.4 is likely four months away: Apple just released iOS 26.1 and is beta testing iOS 26.2, and neither update comes with any Siri upgrades. Since the company released iOS 18.4 in March of this year, chances are we’ll see 26.4 in March 2026. If so, we might only be a quarter year away from a new Siri experience.
Next year, according to Gurman, Siri will get a total makeover. The assistant will be more conversational, and will power Apple’s upcoming smart home device strategy. But that’s a ways away yet.
AI health agent
Gurman says Apple is also working on an AI agent that can coach users on health-related issues. Codenamed “Project Mulberry,” the service combines a new Health app, subscription (Health+), and AI health assistant. This assistant can pull data from the Health app to inform its advice, and is being trained using real doctors across medical professions. According to Gurman, “if the Health app receives data about poor heart-rate trends, a video explaining the risks of heart disease could appear.”
The company is actually opening studio space to record videos for this service, and may feature a “major doctor personality” to “host” this Health+ service. (My money’s on Doctor Mike, but maybe that’s the only major doctor personality I know.)
Gurman says this AI health agent could arrive as soon as iOS 26.4, alongside the new AI Siri. It will be interesting to see how Apple squares two key problems with this feature: AI sometimes makes mistakes (and sometimes just makes things up), so trusting it to offer health advice raises some red flags. Add in the fact that Apple will be using user data to inform the AI on how to handle health advice, and user privacy questions pop up. The company prides itself on privacy, so I imagine it will have a clear plan here, but if this AI health agent really launches, these points will need to be addressed.
Finally, Gurman says that Apple has “plans for an AI-powered web search tool.” This tool is called “World Knowledge Answers” within the company, and is intended to compete against similar search tools from companies like OpenAI and Perplexity.
World Knowledge Answers will integrate directly within Siri, and may come to Safari and Spotlight too. It may include text, images, videos, and “local points of interest,” as well as AI summaries. The idea is to keep users asking questions within Apple’s own suite of products, rather than see them use other AI search tools. It’s likely it’ll arrive alongside these other two features with iOS 26.4.
Will these AI features be enough to catch Apple up to the rest of the AI players? I’m not sure. But I’m not sure the company needs to catch up. As much as Microsoft has made AI a cornerstone of its new Windows experiences, it’s not the reason people are buying PCs. Similarly, few users are choosing their smartphones, tablets, and computers based on whether Apple, Google, or Microsoft has the best AI assistant, or the best array of AI features. AI might be big money right now, but not in a way where Apple needs to be on top to remain one of the biggest companies in the world.
