In his latest Power On newsletter, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reported over the weekend Apple is working to turn Siri AI into more of an agent. This would be in line with how Meta and OpenAI has empowered Muse and Dots, respectively, to perform tasks on a user’s behalf. It makes sense Apple would want to “catch up” with the competition in this realm.
“Dots, Muse and Grok can keep track of goals, determine what needs to happen next and continue pursuing objectives without the user initiating every individual step,” Gurman wrote on Sunday. “Apple ultimately wants to go in this direction, I’m told, and I believe the company could make Siri more like an agent as early as next year.”
This is exciting from an accessibility perspective, as I’ve written in recent posts here on Curb Cuts. For my part, I’m still dipping my toes into Siri AI, mostly asking it general-purpose or knowledge-based questions. So far, it’s impressive. One of the alluring parts of chatbots for me is using them as an alternative to traditional Google searches in Safari; Siri AI doesn’t subsume that functionality, but the app is a more accessible conduit for quick-fire questions versus launching Safari, opening a new tab, then typing my query. My usage is admittedly rudimentary and spartan compared to what, say, ChatGPT or Claude has long been capable of, but it’s an accessibility win for me nonetheless. More interesting still is a future where Siri AI could control one’s Mac. From an accessibility standpoint, this level of automation could be game-changing for people with certain motor disabilities, for example, who can’t click and drag and whatnot without feeling fatigued, etc. It could potentially be Voice Control on steroids, just without the voice part.
Relatedly, Gurman also noted new CEO John Ternus has pushed Craig Federighi to become more aggressive in developing new software, particularly involving artificial intelligence. It’s fair to wonder how this may (or may not) have ripple effects on Apple’s accessibility efforts. As I’ve mentioned here and there over time, my understanding has long been the company internally views shipping new and improved assistive technologies as an all-hands-on-deck endeavor in a vein not dissimilar to shipping the new iPhones every year. Accessibility is not a lark or side project inside Apple Park; it’s extremely serious business. I don’t see the drive changing under Ternus, but as I said, it’s fair to wonder how Apple’s methods adapt as he continues to put his imprint on things in the early days of being in the catbird seat.
