A reporter for Wired who spent the summer testing Apple’s Siri AI in the iOS 27 beta says the overhauled assistant is a major improvement, yet her own enthusiasm faded as she returned to her old phone habits. She initially believed the new Siri would become an “everything tool” on the iPhone after using it as a tour guide around San Francisco. The chatbot-style app felt sleek, and the personal context features, powered by indexing the contents of her phone, made it easier to find old text messages and photos. Despite this, her usage of the assistant slowly tapered off over the month’s testing.
The reporter notes that Siri AI is clearly better than previous versions and represents a step change for the product. However, she found it was not revolutionizing how she interacted with her device, despite the privacy advantages Apple offers compared to other AI companies. She gradually became neutral on the feature, and eventually went back to manually typing, swiping, and using other apps, including a chatbot from Anthropic called Claude that she already frequented.
Analysts say that even if some power users do not fully embrace the new Siri, it may not matter because everyday iPhone users tend to stick with Apple’s default software. Dipanjan Chatterjee, a vice president and principal analyst at Forrester, acknowledged that Siri may draw criticism for not matching some peers in capability. But he said that criticism is unlikely to cause the vast base of iPhone users to look elsewhere for an assistant.
Industry watchers also point to Apple’s long-standing consumer trust in data privacy as a distinguishing factor. Ramon Llamas, a research director at the International Data Corporation who follows the mobile device market, said users who are deeply embedded in the Apple ecosystem and previously worried about other AI tools’ safety may be open to trying the new Siri because of that trust.
The reporter’s experience may not be typical. Avi Greengart, founder and lead analyst at Techsponential, said that with the latest beta software, he is using Siri more often and for more tasks. He said Siri can now find information stored on his phone faster than any other method, that its world knowledge is much better, and that dictation also works better than before.
Still, a broader cultural backlash against generative AI could keep a solid portion of iPhone owners from using the new Siri altogether. Whether their objection is moral or based on general distrust of AI tools, these holdouts are unlikely to be won over by feature improvements. The reporter concluded that her summer fling with Siri AI was short-lived, but she framed the split as her own issue rather than a flaw in the assistant itself.
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