Enhancing Apple Siri’s Agentic Features by 2026

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Apple aims to enhance Siri’s capabilities by 2026

  • Apple is pushing Siri toward “agentic” behavior: completing multi-step tasks across apps, not just answering one-off commands, according to The Verge citing Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman.
  • Two near-term upgrades include finer control of Apple’s own apps (expected with iOS 27.3) and later third-party app control, Gurman reports.
  • The longer-term goal is ongoing task pursuit—tracking goals and continuing work without constant user prompting, Gurman says.

Apple’s Push for a More Agentic Siri

Apple is accelerating efforts to turn Siri into something closer to an AI “agent”—software that can plan, take actions, and complete tasks across apps—rather than a voice interface that mainly responds to single commands.

Reporting context: The details and timeline below are based on The Verge’s coverage of Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman’s reporting.
The Verge, citing Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, reports that Apple executive John Ternus has been pressuring Apple’s AI leadership—specifically Craig Federighi—to speed up Siri’s roadmap and deliver an AI agent that can compete with products such as OpenAI’s Dots or Meta’s Muse.

Gurman’s framing, as relayed by The Verge, is blunt: Apple has moved quickly to ship a functional version of “Siri AI,” but the company does not believe it is keeping pace with rivals. That matters because the competitive bar has shifted. In Gurman’s description, the best-known agentic systems don’t just answer; they keep track of goals, decide what should happen next, and continue pursuing objectives without the user initiating every step.

Apple’s direction, according to Gurman, is to bring Siri into that category—first by expanding what it can do inside Apple’s own apps, then by letting it operate inside third-party apps, and eventually by making it capable of ongoing, goal-driven work. The near-term changes are concrete and product-shaped; the longer-term ambition is behavioral: Siri that can “stick with” a task.

Upcoming Features in Siri’s Evolution

The next phase of Siri’s evolution is expected to arrive in layers, starting with deeper control over Apple’s first-party apps and then expanding outward to third-party services. The Verge, citing Gurman, describes these as two significant improvements expected in the coming months—one smaller but foundational, the other bigger and more ecosystem-defining.

The first step is about precision: Siri gaining more granular abilities inside Apple’s own software. The second step is about reach: Siri being able to take actions in apps Apple doesn’t make. Together, they move Siri from “command-and-response” toward “delegate-and-complete.”

Fine-Grained Control Over First-Party Apps

One of the most immediate upgrades, according to The Verge citing Gurman, is “fine-grained control” over Apple’s first-party apps. The examples given are practical and telling: Siri could rotate and crop images in Photos, and it could organize Safari tabs.

Those are not novelty tricks. They represent a shift from Siri as a launcher (“open Photos”) or a simple executor (“set a timer”) to Siri as an interface for real app functionality—actions that typically require tapping through menus, selecting options, and confirming changes. If Siri can reliably perform these operations, it becomes less of a voice assistant and more of a hands-on operator inside the OS.

Gurman expects these first-party controls to land with iOS 27.3, according to The Verge. That version number matters because it implies Apple is treating agentic capability as an iterative rollout rather than a single “big bang” release—adding competence in specific domains, then expanding.

Integration with Third-Party Applications

The larger change, according to The Verge citing Gurman, is Siri integration with third-party apps. Gurman’s examples are the kind of tasks people actually want to delegate: Siri placing an order through Grubhub or booking a dinner reservation through OpenTable.

This is where Siri’s “agentic” promise becomes visible to everyday users. Ordering food or booking a reservation is inherently multi-step: choosing a restaurant, selecting items or times, confirming details, and completing the transaction. If Siri can do that inside third-party apps, it’s no longer limited to Apple’s walled garden of first-party workflows.

Gurman expects this third-party integration to arrive later—“in the Spring,” as The Verge summarizes his reporting. The sequencing also makes sense: Apple can harden the underlying action-taking mechanisms in its own apps first, then expose similar capabilities to external developers and services.

Siri’s Ability to Perform Complex Tasks

Agentic assistants are defined less by how well they chat and more by whether they can execute complex, multi-step tasks. The Verge reports that future versions of Siri are expected to perform more complex tasks and control third-party apps, citing Gurman.

The examples in Gurman’s reporting—editing a photo by rotating and cropping, organizing Safari tabs, ordering via Grubhub, booking via OpenTable—share a common trait: they require a chain of actions that must happen in the right order. They also require context. “Crop this image” is ambiguous unless Siri knows which image you mean and what kind of crop you want; “book dinner” is incomplete unless Siri knows where, when, and for how many people.

This is why the move toward complex tasks is not just a feature checklist; it’s a capability shift. Siri must be able to translate a user’s intent into a plan, then carry out that plan through app interfaces and APIs. Gurman’s reporting, as presented by The Verge, suggests Apple is building toward that by expanding Siri’s control surface—first-party first, third-party next.

Complexity also raises the stakes for reliability. A mis-rotated photo is annoying; a mistaken food order or reservation can cost money and time. Gurman’s emphasis on “agentic” behavior implies Apple is trying to meet the market’s expectation that assistants can do real work, not just provide information or trigger simple shortcuts.

In that sense, the third-party integration is not merely additive; it’s a test of whether Siri can be trusted with tasks that matter.

What “agentic” means here: In Gurman’s framing (as quoted by The Verge), agentic systems can keep track of goals, determine what needs to happen next, and continue pursuing objectives without the user initiating every individual step.
And the first-party controls are a proving ground: if Siri can’t consistently manage Photos edits or Safari organization, it will struggle even more in the messier world of third-party services.

The Shift Towards Ongoing Task Management

The most consequential change described in Gurman’s reporting is not any single app action—it’s the move from one-off commands to ongoing task management. The Verge quotes Gurman describing how systems like Dots, Muse, and Grok can “keep track of goals, determine what needs to happen next and continue pursuing objectives without the user initiating every individual step.”

That is the heart of “agentic” AI: persistence. Instead of the user micromanaging each step (“now do this, now do that”), the assistant maintains a goal and keeps working toward it. In practice, that could mean following through on a multi-stage objective—where the assistant remembers what’s already been done, what remains, and what the next best action is.

Gurman says Apple ultimately wants to go in this direction, and he believes Apple could make Siri more like an agent “as early as next year,” according to The Verge. The phrasing implies urgency: Apple is responding to “current consumer and market demands,” as Gurman puts it in the quote published by The Verge.

Ongoing task management also changes how users relate to Siri. A one-off assistant is reactive: it waits. An agent is proactive in the limited sense that it continues a process once authorized. That doesn’t necessarily mean Siri will act without permission; it means the user doesn’t have to re-initiate every micro-action.

This shift also reframes what “success” looks like. For years, voice assistants were judged on recognition accuracy and trivia answers. Gurman’s description suggests the new benchmark is operational competence: can Siri take a goal, break it down, and keep moving until it’s done?

Expected Release Timeline for Siri Improvements

Gurman’s reporting, as summarized by The Verge, outlines a staggered timeline rather than a single release date. The near-term roadmap centers on two improvements expected “in the coming months,” with different delivery windows.

First, fine-grained control over Apple’s first-party apps is expected to arrive with iOS 27.3, according to Gurman via The Verge. The examples attached to this milestone—Photos edits like rotate and crop, and Safari tab organization—suggest Apple is targeting everyday productivity actions that are easy to demonstrate and easy for users to validate.

Second, the “bigger change” is third-party app integration, which Gurman expects to land later, “in the Spring,” according to The Verge. The examples—ordering through Grubhub and booking through OpenTable—imply Apple is aiming for high-frequency consumer tasks that showcase end-to-end completion.

Beyond those two steps, Gurman points to a broader push toward ongoing task management and goal pursuit. He says Apple wants Siri to become more agentic and believes Apple could make Siri more like an agent as early as next year, as quoted by The Verge. That statement is less a calendar promise than a directional marker: Apple is trying to compress timelines because the market is moving.

Taken together, the timeline reads like a capability ladder:

  1. deeper first-party control (iOS 27.3),
  2. third-party execution (Spring),
  3. more persistent, goal-driven behavior (as early as next year, in Gurman’s view).

All three steps are presented as Gurman’s expectations and direction-setting comments as summarized and quoted by The Verge, rather than as firm product commitments from Apple.

The Future of Siri AI: A New Era of Agentic Intelligence

Transformative Features and User Experience

If Apple delivers what Gurman describes, Siri’s transformation will be less about sounding smarter and more about being able to do more. The Verge reports that future Siri versions are expected to control third-party apps and perform more complex tasks, and Gurman’s quote emphasizes goal tracking and next-step determination—capabilities that change Siri from a feature into a workflow layer.

The user experience implication is straightforward: fewer taps, fewer app switches, and less manual coordination. Rotating and cropping a photo or organizing Safari tabs are small examples, but they point to a broader idea—Siri as an interface to app functionality, not just a voice trigger.

Third-party integration is the bigger experiential leap. If Siri can reliably place an order through Grubhub or book a reservation through OpenTable, as Gurman suggests via The Verge, then Siri becomes a practical delegate for routine tasks. That’s the kind of utility that can change habits: users stop thinking “I should open the app” and start thinking “I’ll just tell Siri what I want.”

Gurman’s reporting also underscores the competitive pressure. The Verge says Apple is racing, and Gurman’s view is that Apple doesn’t believe it’s keeping pace with rivals. The comparison set—Dots, Muse, Grok—signals that Apple is being judged against systems designed from the ground up for agentic behavior.

That market dynamic creates a narrow path: Apple needs to ship quickly, but agentic systems are only as good as their reliability. The more Siri can do—especially in third-party apps—the more visible any mistakes become. Ordering food or booking reservations, the examples Gurman gives via The Verge, are high-stakes in a way that trivia answers aren’t.

The other challenge is expectation management. Gurman’s quote, as published by The Verge, frames agentic behavior as something consumers increasingly demand. That demand can quickly turn into disappointment if features arrive unevenly—strong in first-party apps but inconsistent in third-party services, or good at one-off actions but weak at ongoing goal pursuit.

Still, the direction is clear in Gurman’s reporting: Apple is trying to move Siri into the agent era, step by step, because the market has already moved there.

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