Apple is gearing up to host its annual developers conference, WWDC 2025, which is scheduled to kick off on June 9. While many are expecting major announcements, especially in the AI space, it seems Apple might not have too many groundbreaking updates to share this time around.
Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman has shared in his latest newsletter that Apple insiders “believe that the conference may be a letdown from an AI standpoint,” showing that the company still has a lot of catching up to do in the artificial intelligence race. That said, Apple still has a few AI-related features planned for the event.
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The biggest AI update expected at WWDC 2025 is Apple’s move to open up its on-device foundation models to third-party developers. These models are the same ones Apple currently uses for features like autocorrect and text summarisation. Soon, developers will be able to use them in their own apps. While this is a big step for Apple’s AI platform, these models are not as powerful as the larger cloud-based systems from OpenAI or Google.
Other AI-related features coming in iOS 26 reportedly include a new battery-saving mode, an improved Translate app that works with both Siri and AirPods, and some AI-powered upgrades in apps like Safari and Photos.
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As Gurman explains, this could be a “gap year” for Apple. The company is saving its more ambitious AI projects—like an LLM Siri, a revamped Shortcuts app, and a ChatGPT-like assistant with search features—for future releases. Internally, Apple hopes to make a stronger push at WWDC 2026 to “try to convince consumers that it’s an AI innovator.”
Meanwhile, Apple is said to drop version numbers like iOS 18 and macOS 15, and instead start naming its software based on the upcoming year. That means the next wave of updates will likely be called iOS 26, iPadOS 26, macOS 26, watchOS 26, tvOS 26 and visionOS 26.
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