Apple mulls using OpenAI or Anthropic to power Siri in big reversal: report

Apple is weighing using artificial intelligence technology from Anthropic or OpenAI to power a new version of Siri, instead of its own in-house models, Bloomberg News reported Monday.The iPhone maker has had discussions with both companies about using their large language models for Siri, asking them to train versions of their LLMs that could run on Apple’s cloud infrastructure for testing, the report said, citing people familiar with the discussions.Apple’s investigation into third-party models is at an early stage and the company has not made a final decision on using them, the report said.Amazon-backed Anthropic declined to comment, while Apple and OpenAI did not respond to Reuters requests.The company had in March said AI improvements to its voice assistant Siri will be delayed until 2026, without giving a reason for the setback.Apple shook up its executive ranks to get its AI efforts back on track after months of delays, resulting in Mike Rockwell taking charge of Siri, as CEO Tim Cook lost confidence in AI head John Giannandrea’s ability to execute on product development, Bloomberg had reported in March.Amid intense competition among major tech firms to dominate the burgeoning generative AI sector, Apple has been partnering with established AI companies and integrating a host of on-device AI features to enhance its offerings.In May, Bloomberg reported that Apple was teaming up with Anthropic on a new “vibe-coding” software platform that will use AI to write, edit and test code on behalf of programmers....