Want Siri AI to be your girlfriend? Apple says it is not into that

Apple just revealed a revamped Siri that can now act like an AI chatbot similar to ChatGPT or Gemini. But does this mean you can have romantic conversations with the virtual assistant? Apple's software chief Craig Federighi says that Siri is not interested.

In Short

• Siri will not be your girlfriend, says Apple’s software chief Craig Federighi
• Siri is designed to help you learn and do things only, he says
• Apple does not want Siri to be sycophantic

Siri was the highlight of Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) this year. After falling behind the likes of ChatGPT and Gemini, the company has finally brought big upgrades that turn Siri into an AI chatbot. In case you have kept track of AI chatbots, you may know that sometimes users may form an attachment with the AI, akin to that of a partner. But according to Apple’s senior vice president of software engineering Craig Federighi, Siri does not want to be your girlfriend.

Craig claimed that the purpose of Apple’s Siri revamp was to make it more useful as a virtual assistant, rather than trying to keep it engaged with users. He told Mostly Human, “The way that we have designed Siri, Siri really wants to say 'Listen, that's not what I'm here for, right? I'm here to help you. I can help you get things done. I can help you learn about the world.’”

However, when asked if users can create their AI boyfriend or girlfriend with Siri, the Apple software chief claimed that Siri was simply not interested. He explained, “If you try to engage Siri as a romantic partner, Siri's not up for that. Siri's 100 percent not into that.”

Siri is opposite of sycophantic AI chatbots

In recent months, users have become quite attached to AI chatbots. In February, thousands of ChatGPT users were furious on OpenAI when the company retired the GPT-4o model that was infamous for being sycophantic – being too positive and agreeable to the user – as these users felt like they had formed a close bond with the chatbot. On the other hand, Elon Musk-led xAI’s Grok chatbot comes with AI companion options.

But Craig Federighi says that Apple does not want you to keep being engaged with Siri. Craig explained, “if you use many of the existing chatbots, they're really focused on engagement to a large degree. And sycophancy, right? They kind of want to pull you in.” He added, “They might encourage you to reveal things about yourself, and then use that as a basis to establish a connection. We view it quite the opposite.”

Craig’s comments come as Siri gets a new visual look with a sleeker design and a dedicated app. The Apple assistant is now powered by Google’s Gemini models that run on Apple’s private compute, ensuring user privacy.

Siri AI is said to now be more conversational, better at understanding your personal context, and do a lot more, such as analysing what is on your screen or taking actions across apps. Apple says that Siri AI will be integrated across the entire ecosystem iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, CarPlay and Vision Pro. The various conversations you have on different devices will be synced via iCloud.

The Cupertino giant has also added new AI features across the interface, including the Photos app and Image Playground.

Apple wants AI to disappear in the background

But instead of AI being an attention grabber, Apple’s marketing chief Greg Joswiak believes that it should simply be a piece of tech that disappears in the background of your everyday life.

He said, “We like [it] when technology disappears, right? You just focus on what you want to do, or you focus on the content. And it’s the same thing with AI. We don’t do AI for AI’s sake. Joswiak added that Apple did not want iPhone users to have to become “prompt experts” to use AI, saying the company wanted to “meet them where they’re at.”

The new Siri AI update is expected to roll out, along with new AI features, next month in a public beta. The full release will likely happen only in September with the rumoured launch of the iPhone 18 Pro models, and the first-ever iPhone Fold.

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