Craig Federighi, Apple’s SVP of engineering, said the new Siri will resist attempts at romance.
Siri AI will fend off users’ attempts at romancing it, according to Craig Federighi, Apple’s SVP of engineering. As MacRumors has reported, Federighi clarified that the upgraded Siri for iOS 27 won’t suck up to you like other AIs in an interview with the podcast Mostly Human, along with Apple marketing chief Greg Joswiak.
“Quite the opposite because as you may know, if you use many of the existing chat bots, they’re really focused on engagement to a large degree. And sycophancy, right? They kind of wanna pull you in,” Federighi replied when asked about the possibility of Siri becoming a user’s AI partner. “They kind of wanna pull you in.
He added that other AIs might encourage users to reveal more about themselves and then use that information to establish a connection. Apple, however, designed Siri to put up and maintain boundaries, so to speak. “Siri really wants to say, ‘Listen, that’s not what I’m here for, right? I’m here to help you. I can help you get things done,” he explained.
Joswiak added that Apple likes for the technology behind its features to “disappear” into the background, so that its users can just focus on what they want to do or focus on the content itself. The company doesn’t want or need its users to become prompt experts to get the most out of Siri. “We want to meet them where they’re at,” Joswiak said. “Have the products and features become better, and this is just a really helpful technology in making those features and products better.”
It took nearly two years of delays before Apple officially introduced the new Gemini-powered Siri that it introduced at WWDC back in 2024. The new Siri will be more deeply integrated into Apple’s mobile platform, as well as its apps, including Camera and Photos. It can search the web, understand on screen context and take user’s personal information into account to complete various tasks. Apple will also release a dedicated Siri app to compete with chatbots like ChatGPT and Claude, allowing users to talk to the assistant through text and voice.
