Apple’s long-planned overhaul of its Siri voice assistant has been delayed yet again. Reports suggest internal testing uncovered quality issues, also reflected in the company’s latest software plans show. Features initially slated for iOS 26.4, scheduled for a March release, will now roll out in iOS 26.5 in May and eventually in iOS 27 later this year, according to fresh reports.
Several next-generation Siri features, including deeper understanding of personal context and the ability to act based on what’s on a user’s screen, did not meet internal standards during recent testing cycles. These promised enhancements were first showcased as part of Apple Intelligence’s roadmap at last year’s Worldwide Developers Conference, where Siri’s evolution into a more helpful and personalized assistant was highlighted as a key advancement for iOS, iPadOS and macOS.
Apple even ran an ad for “Personal Siri” back in September 2024 during the launch of the iPhone 16 series. However, by March 2025, delays forced Apple to pull the ad. It showcased how Siri could dive into a user’s messages, call history, calendar, email, and other apps to provide answers to specific questions. Additionally, earlier in 2025, Siri was set to gain the ability to understand the content displayed on the screen, allowing it to give even better responses.
According to internal documents, the internal version of iOS 26.5 includes a toggle for employees to activate “Personal Siri.” With this feature, you can ask Siri about the arrival time of your uncle’s flight. Siri will sift through some of your personal apps to find the answer. The existence of this toggle might suggest that Apple plans to inform users when the feature is released, indicating that it may not function perfectly right away.
The delayed features would allow Siri to draw from personal data to answer more nuanced questions and perform multi-step tasks across apps without breaking user privacy, a challenging balance Apple has emphasized with its Private Cloud Compute approach to generative AI.
Although the company has already incorporated AI capabilities like improved natural language understanding into recent software updates, those enhancements fall short of the fully contextual, action-oriented Siri that had been anticipated.
In tandem with its internal AI work, Apple has also been exploring partnerships with major AI model providers, including a multiyear collaboration with Google to integrate its Gemini AI models as part of the personalization foundation for Siri and Apple Intelligence. These moves reflect Apple’s efforts to accelerate its AI roadmap while addressing technical hurdles that have slowed progress relative to competitors in conversational AI.
By postponing the rollout of key Siri features into incremental iOS updates and deferring more ambitious chatbot-style functionality into iOS 27, Apple is signaling a cautious stance toward AI integration. The delays are not always a sign of issues, like Siri delays are more likely than not to give developers and testers more time to refine AI behavior and performance ahead of broader public deployment.
Meanwhile, Apple has just released iOS 26.3, which is a bug-fixing update, and not a major overhaul.
