Apple CEO Presses for Accelerated Agentic AI Siri Roadmap

Apple CEO John Ternus is privately urging software chief Craig Federighi to accelerate the company's artificial intelligence roadmap to better compete with agents from OpenAI, xAI, and Meta. Ternus has expressed frustration over a perceived lack of urgency, pushing for Siri to evolve into an autonomous AI agent capable of executing multi-step tasks in the background without constant user initiation.

Internal friction has emerged due to differing planning horizons, with hardware teams planning years ahead while software teams operate on 12- to 18-month cycles. While Federighi is credited with launching the rebuilt Siri beta in September, he has expressed skepticism regarding the privacy and security risks associated with agentic AI. To bridge this gap, Apple is experimenting with a new engineering pipeline for iOS 28 that increases coding and exploration time to six weeks.

Current developments in the iOS 27.3 beta include request-based controls for organizing Safari tabs and managing files, with a proactive, agent-like version of Siri potentially debuting as early as 2027. Amidst these strategic shifts, Siri engineering executive Mike Rockwell is reportedly considering leaving the company next year, a move that would shift his responsibilities to Amar Subramanya and Sebastien Marineau.