Apple could reveal new Gemini-powered Siri in "less than a month" – iPhone updates could even arrive soon

It's full steam ahead for Siri and Gemini

Apple iPhone Air Review
(Image credit: Future / Britta O'Boyle)
Quick Summary

There could be some Gemini-powered features coming to Siri within the next couple of weeks.

It's said that Apple is planning to unveil some enhancements that will arrive with iOS 26.4.

Apple could enable Gemini-powered Siri features in the iOS 26.4 beta and show off some of those features as soon as February.

But while the chatbot features aren't expected until iOS 27, Apple users could be in for a treat much sooner, with the first results of using Gemini appearing in iOS 26.4.

That's reported by Mark Gurman at Bloomberg (via 9to5Mac), saying that "Apple appears to be less than a month away from unveiling the results of this partnership".

That would see some sort of announcement towards the end of February.

Veterans of the mobile tech space will know that February is a busy time, with Samsung expected to launch its new devices, and Mobile World Congress – the huge phone show in Barcelona, Spain – taking place.

Apple has been known to make announcements around these events, with Gurman saying that Apple is "just weeks away from finally delivering on the Siri promises it made… in June 2024".

What is the new version of Siri?

For those who don't remember, Apple introduced Apple Intelligence in 2024, with the promise of a heavily upgraded Siri experience which has failed to materialise. Now, finally, we could be weeks away from that happening.

It's expected that Siri will be able to do more for you, with more information available as well as having greater awareness of what's on the screen. But this isn't the full move to a chatbot experience that's expected to be unveiled at WWDC 2026, before launching with iOS 27 in September.

Apple was reportedly in discussion with both OpenAI and Anthropic about getting access to their models to power Siri, but following the ruling that Apple's agreement with Google for Google Search on iPhone wasn't illegal, it seems like Gemini became the obvious choice.

That makes it a busy time for Siri and will be a welcome change for a system that kicked off the voice assistant era in 2011, but struggled to keep pace with the likes of Google Assistant (more recently Gemini) or Alexa.

It's not known exactly how Apple will reveal these details, or the type of event we might expect, but keep them peeled – we should soon find out more.

TOPICS
Chris Hall

Chris has been writing about consumer tech for over 15 years. Formerly the Editor-in-Chief of Pocket-lint, he's covered just about every product launched, witnessed the birth of Android, the evolution of 5G, and the drive towards electric cars. You name it and Chris has written about it, driven it or reviewed it. Now working as a freelance technology expert, Chris' experience sees him covering all aspects of smartphones, smart homes and anything else connected. Chris has been published in titles as diverse as Computer Active and Autocar, and regularly appears on BBC News, BBC Radio, Sky, Monocle and Times Radio. He was once even on The Apprentice... but we don't talk about that. 

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