Over that period, he grew Apple from a USD 350 billion company to one worth over USD 3 trillion. But the company he hands over faces a pointed question: did Apple wait too long to get serious about artificial intelligence?

WWDC 2026 was Apple’s answer. And it was a comprehensive one.

A New Siri, Built from Scratch
The centrepiece of the entire event was a completely rebuilt version of Siri, rebranded as Siri AI. The old Siri, the one that often struggled to understand requests, forgot context mid-conversation, and regularly handed users off to a web search, is gone.

In its place is a conversational assistant that can hold a thread across multiple exchanges, remember what was said earlier, and take action across apps without being told to start from scratch each time.

The visual change is immediately obvious. Rather than the familiar-coloured glow around the edges of the screen, invoking Siri AI brings up a dark-themed overlay from the “Dynamic Island,” the pill-shaped cutout at the top of recent iPhones. There is now a dedicated app that stores the full conversation history, synced across iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, Mac, and Apple Vision Pro through iCloud.

Live demonstrations at the keynote showed what this actually looks like in practice. A user asked Siri AI to check the rules for a concert ticket lottery, set reminders around the relevant dates, pull together a watch-party menu based on what their friends had been discussing in Messages, and draft an email about it, all in one flowing conversation. That kind of chained task was simply not possible before.

Two capabilities make this work. The first is personal context understanding. Siri AI reads across a user’s messages, emails, and photos to surface relevant information without needing everything spelled out.

The second is onscreen awareness, which means the assistant can see what is currently on the screen and act on it. If a user is looking at a recipe, Siri AI knows that. If they are reading an email thread, it knows that too.

Writing Help and a Smarter Camera
Siri AI has also become a system-wide writing assistant through a feature called “Writing Tools.” It can generate a draft from scratch across any app, a message, an email, a note, and will adjust its tone depending on who the user is writing to. If someone typically messages their manager in short bullet points, the system will pick that up and mirror it automatically.

On the camera side, a capability called Visual Intelligence has been significantly expanded. On iPhone, it is now built into the Camera app. Point the phone at a dish in a restaurant and it will return nutritional information; hold it over a dinner bill and it can split the cost through Apple Cash. This feature is now available on iPad and Mac as well.

On iPad, it is accessible through the screenshot tool. On Mac, users can hold a keyboard shortcut, draw a box around any part of the screen, and ask Siri AI a question about it. On Apple Vision Pro, the spatial computing headset, Visual Intelligence works in the physical world, and users can look at a real-world object and query the assistant about it.

How the System Actually Works
The engineering underneath all of this is worth understanding, because it is central to Apple’s argument that it can compete with the big cloud AI players while protecting user privacy.

Apple uses what it calls a system orchestrator, essentially a traffic controller that sits in the background, watching what a user is doing and deciding where each query should go. Simple tasks are handled directly on the device itself by Apple’s own in-house model, called the “Apple Foundation Model Core.”

More demanding local tasks, fast dictation and expressive voice synthesis, go to a more powerful version of the same model. If a query is too complex for the device to handle locally, it gets routed to Apple’s cloud infrastructure, called Private Cloud Compute.

The key privacy claim is that any data processed through Private Cloud Compute is never stored, and Apple itself cannot access it. That is a meaningful distinction from how most cloud AI services work.

The Google Partnership
To power its most capable cloud-based features, Apple has partnered with Google and is using a custom version of Google’s Gemini AI model, specifically tuned to work within Apple’s system. This is not a simple API arrangement where Apple just plugs into Google’s chatbot. Apple’s own engineering team trained its models using techniques refined in part by Gemini’s outputs. The licence reportedly costs Apple around USD 1 billion a year.

This is a notable development. Apple and Google are fierce competitors in the smartphone market, yet on AI, they have found a significant point of collaboration. For Apple, it means access to world-class large language model capability without having to build everything from scratch. For Google, it means its Gemini technology is embedded at the system level of the world’s most profitable consumer hardware ecosystem.

Where This Leaves the Chatbot Market
The broader AI landscape has been shifting rapidly. OpenAI, which dominated the chatbot market through 2024 and most of 2025, has seen its share fall from around 87% to somewhere between 64% and 68%. Google’s Gemini has grown significantly, capturing between 18% and 21% of the market. The field is no longer winner-takes-all.

Siri AI enters this landscape differently from ChatGPT or Google’s Gemini. It is not trying to win on raw intelligence or breadth of knowledge. It is built to be deeply embedded in a person’s digital life, their specific files, their specific habits, their specific apps.

ChatGPT and Claude, for instance, have no access to a user’s personal data unless it is manually shared. Siri AI, by design, already knows it. That is a different kind of usefulness.

A New Mac Operating System
Apple also launched macOS Golden Gate, the 27th version of its desktop operating system, carrying significant technical changes beneath a refined visual surface.

Most consequentially, it drops support for older Intel-based Mac computers entirely, completing a transition to Apple’s own silicon chips that began in 2020. “Rosetta 2,” the translation layer that allowed older Intel software to run on newer Apple chips, is included for the last time. To run Siri AI on-device, a Mac must have an Apple M3 chip or newer, and at least 12GB of RAM.

The visual changes are more subtle. A global slider to adjust how transparent the interface appears, slightly tighter window corners, and coloured icons in the sidebar. Boot Camp, which allowed Macs to run Windows, has been removed. Support for older AirPort Time Capsule routers used as backup drives has also been dropped.

Elsewhere, Apple Watch gains multi-turn Siri AI support and a redesigned Smart Stack. Apple TV gets up to 30% faster app launch times. And across all platforms, improved child safety tools allow parents to set up dedicated child accounts with content filtering and automatic blocking of violent material.

What Comes Next
Cook’s legacy is a company with unmatched hardware-software integration and a privacy reputation that competitors cannot easily replicate. The challenge he has handed Ternus is to make that integration feel as intelligent as it is seamless.

WWDC 2026 was the clearest signal yet that Apple is not conceding the AI era to cloud-first competitors. It is instead betting that the most valuable AI is the one that already knows you, running quietly on hardware that fits in your pocket and is not sending your information to anyone else.

The post IF Insights: Tim Cook leaves with a new Siri and Apple’s biggest AI gamble yet appeared first on International Finance.

As per a report from Bloomberg, the new Siri will become the centrepiece of Apple’s next-generation iPhone, iPad and Mac software updates.

Analysts are terming the latest Siri launch to be a pivotal moment for Apple’s AI strategy, coinciding with the leadership change at the Silicon Valley giant, in which John Ternus, the current senior vice president of Apple’s hardware engineering, will take over the CEO’s role in September 2026.

“Apple first previewed some of the technology in 2024, only to suffer a series of delays that put it further behind competitors and hurt its reputation. The company has spent the past year rebuilding parts of the assistant while rethinking its broader approach to AI,” reported Bloomberg.

The Siri revamp, touted to be the biggest in the AI assistant’s nearly 15-year history, will be released to consumers as early as September. The event will also likely be Tim Cook’s final major product launch as the CEO before Ternus takes over the proceedings. The immediate test of the revamped Siri will come in the upcoming autumn, during which Apple will be launching its iPhone 18 Pro lineup, along with the company’s first foldable iPhone.

“The new Siri will include the delayed features announced in 2024, such as the ability to understand personal data and analyse on-screen content. But those capabilities are just one part of a broader wave of upgrades: a rebuilt model that uses Google Gemini technology, AI-powered web search and a completely redesigned interface. There’s also a dedicated Siri app designed to compete more directly with ChatGPT and other AI assistants,” Bloomberg reported further.

Apple has redesigned Siri for modern iPhone hardware, making it live inside the Dynamic Island (an interactive, shape-shifting pill-shaped area at the top of the iPhone screen that replaced the traditional notch) as an always-on agent that helps users get things done across the operating system and within apps. The system can draw on web data, personal information and what’s on a user’s screen to complete tasks.

Apple is also testing ways to open up iOS 27 to third-party AI agents installed through the App Store. The tech giant, which already has a partnership with OpenAI’s ChatGPT, recently tested integrations for Siri and other AI features with Google’s Gemini and Anthropic’s Claude, with the goal of routing queries directly to outside AI services from the “Search or Ask” interface.

As per the reports, the revamped Siri will resemble Claude, Gemini and ChatGPT. While the home screen will include a history of previous conversations, to help users return to prior chats, the conversational interface will further offer a voice mode, text field, and attachment picker for uploading documents and photos for context and analysis.

“When users ask for information, Siri presents rich text cards and results for topics such as people, places and news headlines. Similar cards also appear for weather forecasts and sports scores, as well as results pulled from a user’s own data, including notes, text messages, emails, contacts, calendar appointments and reminders. Siri will be smarter, too. In the interface planned by Apple, you can ask it for times you are available for appointments before scheduling something and for overlapping events. You can also ask the assistant to write emails, notes or text messages using information from the web and device content. That could include asking for a note to be created about how to fix a car engine or an email including your calendar availability,” Bloomberg noted.

Apple will also be integrating Siri into the Camera app as a dedicated mode alongside existing options like photo and video. The feature would let users take photos and have them analysed by a third-party AI agent or put into a Google reverse image search. This will help users to get used to visual AI ahead of future products like smart glasses and camera-equipped AirPods.

Apple is also bringing more “Apple Intelligence” features to the Photos app, including new tools called Reframe and Extend. Reframe can change the perspective of a photo, while Extend will be using AI to generate additional portions of an image. However, rival platforms from Google and others have offered similar capabilities for years.

The tech giant is also testing natural language prompt-based editing of photos that will enable users to ask via voice or text for specific edits, like cropping or changing colours.

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July 21, 2014: On Monday 2nd June, Apple held its annual Worldwide Developers’ Conference (WWDC) at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. Despite rumours of new devices like the iWatch and a bigger iPhone in the run up to the event, the conference was all about the software. Apple announced updates to both its mobile platform, iOS, and OS X, the platform that Mac desktops run on. The updates will bring a deluge of new features to Apple products, alongside making them work better with each other.

At the same time, Apple confirmed what Blackberry has feared for a long time — that they now dominate the enterprise market. According to CEO Tim Cook, 98% of the Fortune 500 companies’ preferred smartphone is the iPhone. Inevitably, that’s a lot of business travellers writing email, viewing files and making calls on Apple devices.

The new features that are coming with iOS8 and Yosemite will make working on the go, not to mention just being on the move, a lot easier. Here’s my list of the top 8 features business travellers should be looking forward to:

1. Touch ID – Mobile payments are coming

Near Field Communications (NFC) technology was touted as the next big thing, with other smartphone operators installing on their devices for over a year now. Apple surprised many by declining to go down the NFC route, instead choosing to include Bluetooth LE in devices from 2013 onward. This coincided with the launch of iBeacons, an Apple service that allows retailers to detect where shoppers are in their stores and send notifications if they have the brand’s app installed – payment isn’t an option yet but that might all be about to change.

At WWDC, Apple announced it would be allowing developers access to its Touch ID feature. This is a big deal because it gives developers the opportunity to link up payments for their apps to the 5S and any new devices that use Touch ID (think the iWatch). Imagine waving your wrist at a pad to pay for a coffee and then confirming the purchase just by pressing your device’s fingerprint scanner.

2. Maildrop – Hate large files no longer

Having your mail bounce back at you whenever you try to send an email crammed with attachments is a problem you’ve definitely come up against. Workarounds can be complex or fiddly, especially when not everyone is quite so tech savvy and doesn’t use cloud based file sharing software like Dropbox or Google Drive. Apple’s new Maildrop feature promises to eliminate that problem automatically, and invisibly uploading the files to iCloud and then doing the reverse at the recipient’s end. If the recipient isn’t on a Mac or iOS device, they’ll automatically get a link included in the email where they can download it in one click. This will allow you to send huge, yes huge (Apple claims up to 5GB), files or folders of files via email as if it were nothing.

3. Extensibility – Your apps will work together

Apple has always been known as a pretty closed off company, from their tight-lipped approach to product releases through to their operating systems. At this year’s WWDC, we witnessed a definite change in philosophy. This is exemplified by the new open mobile model called ‘Extensibility’.

Previously, apps would operate separately from each other, or in individual ‘sandboxes’. Now Apple wants to change all of that. Extensibility will allow apps to talk to each other and share data, if you let them. Apple demoed a few handy examples of this by modifying Safari to use Bing’s translation tool and a pin button from Pinterest. The actual possibilities the new model allows are incredibly vast. In the case of the business traveller, how about seeing the location of the hotel you’re booked into pop up automatically in Google Maps when you’re nearby? Ever get emailed important files while on the go and can’t save them to where you need? The new functionality will allow you to save files to iCloud, or Dropbox and other 3rd party file sharing providers right from within your iPhone.

4. Notification Centre – Do more on the fly

Another cool feature that ‘Extensibility’ brings is app widgets in the notification centre. During the keynote, we saw a demo of an eBay widget sending notifications that Apple’s Craig Federighi was being outbid on a guitar where he was able to enter a new bid right from the notification centre. This same usability will apply to iMessages, meaning you can swipe down on a message notification and reply straight away, without having to open up the app. A definite time saver while on the move.

A useful addition for business travellers might be for an app notification that online check-in has become available for your flight, giving you two buttons – ‘View Flight Details’ and ‘Check Me In’. If you click the check-in button in the widget, you’re then prompted to authenticate your details with the touch of a button, the Touch ID button specifically. Checked-in in three clicks. How great would that be?

5. Touch ID, Again – Say goodbye to hotel room keys

Developers now have access to Touch ID. Developers now also have access to a framework specifically designed for home-based appliances, Homekit. Combine the two and what do you have? You have an app, or apps, that can unlock your hotel room door, order and pay for room service or even purchase a movie on iTunes that you’re connected to via the room’s Apple TV. All done with just your fingerprint to authenticate you as a guest using Touch ID.

6. HealthKit – Keep track of your health on the go

We all know business travel isn’t great for our health. Dashing around, screwing up your body clock while wolfing down bland, reheated airplane food (Travel Fact: Your taste buds are roughly 30% less sensitive at high altitude due to cabin pressure and the dry air, hence why the food tastes terrible). Well Apple might be able to help you counteract the business traveller bulge. In line with HomeKit, Apple is also releasing a framework for health apps to communicate with each other called ‘HealthKit’ (see what they did there). Approved apps will then reside in a new hub on your Apple device called ‘Health’.

Opening up apps to each other with extensions makes perfect sense in this case. Allowing different health apps to communicate together magnifies their usefulness. As a result, information from sleep monitoring apps can be combined with the likes of Nike+ to get a more complete picture of your health. Add in some information on your diet and you pretty quickly end up with a device that knows you (a lot) better than your GP. We might not be too far off your smart devices being able to schedule a 20-minute run after your mid-morning conference call, perish the thought, or suggest restaurants to eat at based on your target weight. Exciting and scary all at the same time, I know.

7. Handoff – Start work on your iPhone, finish it on your Mac, or tablet.

When iOS8 and OS X Yosemite launch later this year (for iPhones, iPads and Macs respectively), Apple’s Airdrop feature will bring the ability to seamlessly share files via Bluetooth across all your Apple products. The much bigger, more unexpected innovation that Apple unveiled at WWDC was Handoff. Handoff recognises when you’re performing a task such as composing an email or editing a keynote presentation on one device and preps another nearby device to take over. Running late for a meeting and halfway through an important email on your desktop? Pick up your iPhone and you’ll see a mail icon in the bottom corner of your lock screen. Tap it and mail will open up on your iPhone with exactly what you’ve already typed out on your Mac. Finish that email on the go, no need to stick around and finish it or type the whole thing up again on your phone. Viewing a webpage in Safari on your iPad on your way to the office? Click the Safari icon on your Mac and you’ll be taken to the same page you were browsing a few minutes earlier on your other device.

8. Predictive text – Your smartphone just got smarter

For years, the Blackberry dominated the enterprise smartphone market thanks to the ease with which you could tap out an email and fire it off while on the move. The world is very much a touchscreen place now, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t inherent issues with typing on an iPhone. Just visit Damnyouautocorrect to see the odd, hilarious and occasionally downright shocking results of not checking your message before sending it. When iOS 8 launches later this year, iPhone users will be given a helping hand, with suggested words popping up just above the keys based on what you’ve already typed. iOS 8 also learns to differentiate how you talk to your boss compared to your friends and family too, serving up words based on previous conversations.

Android users highlight that they’ve had this feature for a while now but given the platform’s poor adoption in the enterprise space (Apple accounts for almost three quarters of enterprise smartphone adoption), this is a step forward for the iPhone sporting majority of business travellers.

So what’s next?

This much is clear. By opening up its apps to work together, and getting different platforms to work seamlessly no matter what you’re doing, Apple is now promoting its unified ecosystem just as much as the devices themselves. With all the major tech players offering synced services, the barriers to switching one device from Apple to Android or Windows to Apple are becoming higher, but the benefits of sticking with one platform for all your gadgets were clearly on show for business travellers who use an Apple device.

The improved Notification Centre will mean you’ll be able to do more quickly, adding a new layer of responsiveness to Apple’s mobile devices. Combine this with a now truly useful iCloud and the ability to pick up tasks from where you left off on another device and you’ve got a proposition that many executives would find hard to ignore, even if a Mac is four times the price of a Chromebook.

Apple also ensured even more support from its massive developer community by unveiling a new programming language, Swift. It promises to make app development quicker, easier and more accessible. This goes a long way to guaranteeing that apps will appear first on Apple devices whilst also allowing more and more people to develop apps for the Cupertino based firm.

Josh Gunn.

Source: Statesman Travel Group

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