Apple is planning to replace Siri with an actual AI chatbot later this year, marking a complete reversal from the company’s previous stance that nobody wants a chatbot and that AI should just be invisibly woven into features.
The new system, code-named Campos, will work like ChatGPT or Google Gemini in the sense that you’ll be able to have back-and-forth conversations with it using either voice or typing.
According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, the chatbot is being built directly into iOS 27, iPadOS 27, and macOS 27, which are scheduled to launch in September after a preview at Apple’s developer conference in June.
This is separate from another Siri update coming in the next few months with iOS 26.4. That earlier update keeps the current Siri interface but adds some features Apple announced back in 2024, like analyzing what’s on your screen and tapping into your personal data. The chatbot version coming later is the real overhaul.
What makes Campos different from third-party chatbots is that it’ll have deeper access to your device. It can read what’s on your screen, control your phone’s settings, make calls, set timers, and launch apps.
It’ll also search through your personal data to find specific files, messages, calendar events, and songs. Beyond that, it does the standard chatbot stuff like web searches, writing content, generating images, summarizing information, and analyzing files you upload.
Apple has been testing Campos internally as a standalone app, similar to how ChatGPT and Gemini work, but won’t release it that way. Instead, the chatbot will replace the current Siri across all of Apple’s operating systems.
This shift may be Apple’s way of trying to catch up in the AI race after falling behind OpenAI, Google, and Microsoft. Apple Intelligence had a rough start in 2024, with features that disappointed users or took forever to arrive.
The company spent months looking for an AI partner, testing technology from OpenAI and Anthropic before settling on Google’s Gemini earlier this month. The Campos chatbot will reportedly use a custom Gemini model as part of that multiyear partnership.
Apple’s previous position was that users don’t want a chatbot and prefer AI integrated invisibly into specific features like writing tools and emoji generators.
That argument apparently didn’t hold up against the success of ChatGPT and mounting pressure from competitors. The threat of OpenAI entering the hardware market might have pushed things along too.
Outside of the chatbot, the new operating systems won’t see major changes this year. Apple is focusing on performance improvements and bug fixes after last year’s design overhaul that unified the look across its platforms.
