Siri received only a brief mention at WWDC 2025, with key updates still pending.
Apple Intelligence introduced system-wide features like smart summaries and image editing.
Apple’s visual lookup expands search capabilities within apps.
Apple’s WWDC 2025 was a high-gloss showcase of what looked like a reworked windows vista and some more AI features. The company spent over an hour talking about the updates it brought to “Apple Intelligence” across Messages, Mail, Notes, Photos, Maps and Facetime. Smart summaries, priority messages, image generation, it was all there, wrapped in the usual sleek language of privacy, performance, and polish.
However, while Craig Federighi animatedly walked us through summaries and Genmojis, there was an unmistakable absence at the core of Apple’s AI vision – Siri.
Also read: At WWDC 2025, Apple puts design first again with iOS 26, macOS 26 Tahoe and iPadOS 26
And when it did, it was mostly to say the features Apple promised last year still aren’t ready. That’s not a minor omission. Siri is supposed to be Apple’s interface to the future. Instead, it was barely a footnote.
Siri, still coming soon
Apple didn’t ignore Siri entirely. They gave it a passing mention to confirm that its long-awaited upgrades will have to wait a little longer. The smarter, more helpful, more conversational Siri that Apple pitched at WWDC 2024 still isn’t shipping.
This isn’t just about one missed deadline, it is disappointment. Especially when you consider that Apple spent over a decade positioning Siri as the future of interaction. Today, it isn’t even the present.
Siri was supposed to be the bridge between Apple Intelligence and everyday users. Instead, Apple handed that job to OpenAI’s ChatGPT yet again. That’s right, rather than putting Siri front and center, Apple now lets you route queries to a third-party assistant. It’s a smart fallback, but it’s also a quiet admission that Siri just can’t keep up.
Apple Intelligence: Useful, but scattered
To be fair, many of the new AI features Apple introduced look useful, Smart replies in Mail and Messages, notification summaries that surface what matters, the new Image Playground feels thoughtful too. But none of that is exactly new or better than what we already have with google. The one thing that they did improve on was visual lookup, which is basically their version of “Circle to search”, that works across apps and not just the web.
But all of it is fragmented, it is spread across apps with no unified voice, no central interface Apple has chosen to embed intelligence in functions, not in conversation. Which would be fine, except it’s still selling Siri as its AI interface.
You can’t have it both ways. If Siri is the assistant, it needs to do more than set timers and mangle dictation. It needs to have both hands on the steering wheel. Right now, it is sitting in the back.
The competition vs Siri
Apple isn’t the only company making assistants. But it might be the only one moving this slowly.
Just weeks earlier, Google I/O painted a very different picture of what AI could be. Google showed Gemini as not just a brain behind apps, but as a full-blown assistant. It wasn’t perfect, but it was clear: Google believes AI assistants are how people will interact with their devices in the future. Samsung, while uneven, is pushing hard on Galaxy AI and real-time call translation. Microsoft is turning Copilot into a desktop AI layer. Even Meta is stuffing its assistant into every messaging surface it can find.
Meanwhile, Apple is still stalling. It’s an odd contradiction: Apple has the best AI marketing name in the game, but the assistant that should embody it, the one users expect to talk to, still doesn’t have the presence, personality, or power to lead it.
WWDC 2025 had all the flash and polish we’ve come to expect. But at the center of all the noise was a pronounced silence. The assistant that started it all, the one that was supposed to lead us into the AI future, is still being promised, still being fixed, still not ready. If Apple isn’t ready to show us a smarter Siri now, one has to wonder, will it ever be?
Also read: We won! Apple is fixing its Photos app
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Vyom Ramani
A journalist with a soft spot for tech, games, and things that go beep. While waiting for a delayed metro or rebooting his brain, you’ll find him solving Rubik’s Cubes, bingeing F1, or hunting for the next great snack. View Full Profile
