Apple CEO Reportedly Confirms Partnership Plans Beyond OpenAI; Revamped Siri Expected to Launch in 2026

Apple has intentions of integrating with more artificial intelligence (AI) companies beyond OpenAI, CEO Tim Cook said in a conversation with a publication on Thursday. The Cupertino-based tech giant has long been rumoured to form partnerships with AI firms to have their large language models (LLMs) power features on iPhone and other Apple devices. The Apple executive also hinted towards a release timeline of Siri with more advanced capabilities, which is yet to arrive after its 2024 showcase.

Apple to Form More AI Partnerships

Following Apple's fiscal Q4 2025 earnings call, CEO Tim Cook sat down with CNBC to share information about the company's plans. When asked about any concrete plans for expanding partnerships beyond OpenAI, Cook highlighted that Apple's “intention is to integrate with more people over time”.

However, the executive did not delve into any specifics. At present, the Cupertino-based tech giant leverages its proprietary LLMs, along with OpenAI's ChatGPT, to power Apple Intelligence features like Siri, Visual Intelligence, and Writing Tools on iPhone, iPad, and Mac.

Following the Apple-OpenAI partnership announcement in 2024, Apple Senior Vice President of Software Craig Federighi claimed that it would also offer integration with models like Google's Gemini “in the future”. And while this integration is yet to arrive, he company has been rumoured to be taking steps to ensure it happens.

In September, it was reported that Apple was bringing Model Context Protocol (MCP) support for its devices. Created by Anthropic, MCP is an open standard that enables interoperability between AI models, public-facing tools, and apps. The company was said to offer MCP support via App Intents to allow apps to share actions and features with AI platforms and agents.

Revamped Siri on the Way

During the conversation, the Apple CEO also confirmed that the revamped Siri with advanced capabilities will be released next year, corroborating the previously leaked timeline. The AI-based voice assistant was due to receive major upgrades in 2024 with iOS 18, but most of those plans were shelved as it fell behind competitors in the AI race.

Earlier this year, it was also reported that Apple was contemplating moving away from its in-house models for Siri's AI-powered features and leveraging Anthropic or OpenAI's AI models instead. These would be used by Siri to deliver human-like responses, the ability to integrate with first-party and third-party apps, and the ability to perform more complex tasks that span multiple interfaces.