Apple on Saturday provided its most detailed public confirmation yet that Siri will be opened to rival artificial intelligence services, naming OpenAI's ChatGPT and Google's Gemini as the first external models available under a new framework set to ship with iOS 19.4 later this year. The announcement came via an update to Apple's developer documentation and a brief statement from the company's machine learning division, a day after Bloomberg News first reported the plans.
Under the new system, users will be able to designate a preferred AI engine for complex language tasks within Siri, while Apple retains control of on-device processing for privacy-sensitive requests such as calendar access and health data. The company described the architecture as a 'federated inference' model, emphasising that user data will not be shared with third-party providers without explicit consent at the time of each query.
The move represents a significant strategic shift for Apple, which has faced sustained criticism that Siri has fallen materially behind ChatGPT, Gemini, and other large language model assistants in conversational capability. Analysts at Wedbush Securities said the announcement validated long-running market concerns that Apple's in-house AI development could not keep pace with the resources OpenAI and Google are deploying, but argued the partnership approach was a pragmatic solution that protects Apple's ecosystem lock-in.
OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman welcomed the development in a post on X, describing it as 'a great outcome for users who want the best of both worlds.' Google declined to comment directly but confirmed in a separate statement that Gemini integration with Apple devices was 'an active area of collaboration.' The confirmation immediately lifted Apple shares in pre-market trading, reversing modest losses the stock had sustained following broader technology sector weakness earlier in the week.
Developers will gain access to the third-party Siri integration APIs at WWDC 2026, scheduled for June, with the public rollout expected in the autumn iOS update cycle. Privacy advocates, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said they would scrutinise the data-handling protocols closely before endorsing the feature, while noting that user opt-in controls appeared more robust than those seen in comparable Android integrations.