Apple Plans to Let Rival AI Chatbots Power Siri in iOS 27

OpenAI has held the only seat at Siri's table since Apple announced their partnership at WWDC 2024. That changes with iOS 27.

Apple plans to open Siri to outside artificial intelligence assistants as part of a Siri overhaul in its upcoming iOS 27 operating system update, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. OpenAI will no longer have an exclusive partnership with Apple when the change is made in iOS 27.

Rather than negotiate individual deals with AI providers, Apple is adding an Extensions system to Siri that will allow AI chatbots to integrate directly with the assistant. An iPhone user with the Claude or Gemini app installed will be able to send questions to those chatbots, mirroring how the current ChatGPT feature works. A message inside test versions of the upcoming operating systems describes the capability directly: "Extensions allow agents from installed apps to work with Siri, the Siri app and other features on your devices."

Users will be able to select which services they want to use inside Siri through "Extensions" options coming to iOS 27, iPadOS 27, and macOS 27, with those options available in the Apple Intelligence and Siri section of the Settings app, where Apple will also provide download links for chatbot apps. AI companies will need to enable support for the new feature in iOS 27.

The overhaul goes further than just a routing menu. A new Siri chatbot, codenamed "Campos," is being developed to be embedded deeply into the iPhone, iPad, and Mac operating systems. The updated Siri will support both text and voice input, a departure from the voice-first experience the assistant has offered since its launch more than a decade ago. Apple is still planning its own chatbot version of Siri based on Google's Gemini models, with Extensions simply giving users the option to direct requests to their preferred chatbot instead.

Bloomberg suggests that expanding Siri integration to other chatbots will allow Apple to generate more money from third-party AI subscriptions made through the App Store. For AI companies, the stakes are substantial: there are already several AI platforms in the App Store, including Amazon's Alexa, Meta AI, Microsoft Copilot, Perplexity, and xAI's Grok, all of which could potentially gain direct access to Siri's query pipeline across Apple's installed base of over a billion devices.

The competitive realignment comes with legal undercurrents. Elon Musk's xAI startup sued Apple and OpenAI, accusing the two companies of conspiring to "ensure their continued dominance" in the AI market. Musk has been publicly vocal about wanting Grok available on the iPhone alongside ChatGPT, and the Extensions system would, in theory, give xAI exactly that pathway.

The new Siri is slated to be unveiled June 8 at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference as part of the iOS 27 and macOS 27 operating systems. Currently in testing, the Extensions system is meant to launch with iOS 27, iPadOS 27, and macOS 27. Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the plans.