Internal discussions within Apple reportedly saw John Giannandrea, who previously led Siri, push for Google’s Gemini chatbot over ChatGPT for integration with Apple’s voice assistant last year. Giannandrea, having previously worked at Google before joining Apple, voiced doubts about the longevity of OpenAI’s technology and raised concerns regarding how it handled users’ confidential information.
Despite these warnings, Apple introduced ChatGPT integration for Siri at its 2024 developer conference, rolling out the feature to customers by the following December. Now, Siri users can access ChatGPT’s capabilities whenever Siri cannot provide a suitable answer.
Apple’s Expanding AI Assistant Options
Last year, Apple revealed intentions to expand Siri’s support to additional chatbots, specifically mentioning Google Gemini as a coming option. The company is actively exploring other partnerships to diversify its suite of available virtual assistants.
Bloomberg reports that preliminary discussions are underway between Apple and AI search provider Perplexity. If talks advance, Siri users could have the option to choose Perplexity as an alternative to ChatGPT and set it as a search provider in Safari.
With this broader approach, Apple AI assistants seem intent on keeping its assistant platform competitive and responsive to user privacy concerns. The expanding integrations point to a future where Siri users might choose from a range of AI bots to best suit their needs.
