Apple is currently in advanced talks with AI leaders Anthropic and OpenAI to potentially integrate their powerful language models—Claude and ChatGPT—into Siri. This move marks a major shift from Apple’s traditional strategy of developing its own in-house AI tools.

The reason behind this shift is that Siri has fallen behind competitors like Google Assistant and Amazon’s Alexa. Apple’s internal efforts to upgrade Siri using its own models haven’t yielded the desired results, prompting the company to explore external solutions. Reports suggest that Anthropic’s Claude has so far performed the best in Apple’s internal testing.

However, negotiations are ongoing and complex. Anthropic is demanding multi-billion-dollar licensing fees, pushing Apple to consider alternatives like OpenAI. Apple also insists on using its secure Private Cloud Compute infrastructure to ensure user privacy—something it won’t compromise on.

Internally, this change has caused unrest among Apple’s AI teams, with some developers reportedly upset or considering leaving due to the company’s reliance on third-party solutions.

Apple is likely to use a hybrid approach—integrating external AI models in the short term while continuing to develop its own. Some AI improvements may appear in Siri with iOS 26, but major updates driven by third-party AI are expected in iOS 27, due in 2026.

Apple is currently in advanced talks with AI leaders Anthropic and OpenAI to potentially integrate their powerful language models—Claude and ChatGPT—into Siri. This move marks a major shift from Apple’s traditional strategy of developing its own in-house AI tools.

The reason behind this shift is that Siri has fallen behind competitors like Google Assistant and Amazon’s Alexa. Apple’s internal efforts to upgrade Siri using its own models haven’t yielded the desired results, prompting the company to explore external solutions. Reports suggest that Anthropic’s Claude has so far performed the best in Apple’s internal testing.

However, negotiations are ongoing and complex. Anthropic is demanding multi-billion-dollar licensing fees, pushing Apple to consider alternatives like OpenAI. Apple also insists on using its secure Private Cloud Compute infrastructure to ensure user privacy—something it won’t compromise on.

Internally, this change has caused unrest among Apple’s AI teams, with some developers reportedly upset or considering leaving due to the company’s reliance on third-party solutions.

Apple is likely to use a hybrid approach—integrating external AI models in the short term while continuing to develop its own. Some AI improvements may appear in Siri with iOS 26, but major updates driven by third-party AI are expected in iOS 27, due in 2026.