Apple ships rebuilt Siri AI in iOS 27 beta, reportedly backed by Google Gemini

After a widely-criticized two-year delay, Apple's rebuilt Siri finally reaches beta testers. The headline feature is a ground-up Siri AI powered by new Apple Foundation Models, which multiple reports say lean on Google Gemini for heavier reasoning — a striking admission that Apple's in-house models weren't ready to carry the flagship assistant alone.

Mechanically, Siri AI adds Visual Intelligence with a new Siri Camera mode, letting users point their camera to query the world, plus deeper AI capabilities across Photos, Safari, Mail and Messages. The rebuild requires an iPhone 15 Pro or newer, drawing a hardware line that leaves older devices behind. Apple also touts 30% faster app launches in iOS 27.

The Gemini backing is the most consequential detail competitively: it makes Apple a distribution channel for Google's models on the world's most valuable install base, echoing the Alibaba-Qwen arrangement Apple uses in mainland China. It's a pragmatic acknowledgment that Apple would rather partner than ship a subpar assistant after the delay damaged its AI credibility.

Skeptics will scrutinize how much of Siri is genuinely Apple's versus Google's, the privacy implications of routing queries to Gemini, and whether the hardware gating alienates users. What to watch: the public launch alongside iOS 27's general release, independent evaluations of the new Siri's reliability, and whether Apple deepens or eventually replaces the Gemini dependency with its own models.