Siri has spent most of its life as the assistant that waits to be told what to do. Apple now appears to be considering a version that doesn’t wait at all.
According to a recent report, Apple is exploring agent-style capabilities that would let Siri take on ongoing tasks with minimal direction. Instead of answering a single request and stopping, the assistant could follow a task over several days, notice when something changes, and act when needed. The report also says CEO John Ternus is pressing software chief Craig Federighi to speed up the company’s AI work, which suggests some internal urgency about where Siri currently stands.
That urgency makes sense. Siri has already gained some meaningful abilities. It can now read what’s on screen, search through messages, perform actions inside apps, and handle several steps in one command. Even so, the user still has to start every interaction. Rivals are moving towards assistants that keep working after the conversation ends.
OpenAI’s ChatGPT Dots runs in the background, watches connected apps, looks into problems, and prepares unfinished work for the user to approve. Meta’s Muse agent has shown similar behaviour, such as finding a permission slip in an email, filling it in, and following up on related arrangements. Those are the kinds of quiet, persistent errands Apple seems to want Siri to handle.
Apple already has some of the groundwork in place. Its expanded App Intents framework lets developers expose more complex in-app actions to Siri, which gives an agent something to work with. The harder part is judgement. An assistant that decides on its own when to read your email, fill in forms, or contact someone raises far bigger privacy and security questions than one that only responds to commands. Ternus has reportedly acknowledged those concerns, and they matter more for Apple than for most competitors, given how heavily the company markets privacy.
Timing is still uncertain. The report suggests more autonomous features could arrive as early as 2027, but Apple has not confirmed a schedule or said what those capabilities would include. Apple’s AI plans have slipped before, so a cautious reading is sensible.