← Front page

The Vergecast · Friday, July 17, 2026

Apple's New Siri AI Beta Shows Promise but Faces Challenges

The latest beta of Apple's iOS 17 features an AI-powered Siri that is demonstrating advanced capabilities, such as executing multi-step tasks by understanding complex user requests. However, initial testing reveals that while the ceiling for Siri's functionality has significantly increased, some basic, previously reliable functions are now less consistent.

personDavid PiercepersonNilay PatelcompanyApplecompanySpotify

The tape

3 quotes
I've had a really interesting experience with Siri AI in particular, which is that it has felt sort of like all the new LLM-based smart home systems, in that the ceiling of what they can do has gone way up, right?
David Pierce
Like David, I remember, wrote a great piece for us about the new Siri AI and did the thing where I think his example was basically like, I'm looking at a Spotify page that I know they're going on tour. Go figure out when they're going on tour and add the ticket sales date to my calendar.
Nilay Patel
So, Siri AI, the ceiling is super high. But basic things that Siri used to do reliably. So like a thing I do all the time. If I'm out walking the dog or in the car or whatever, and I need I have a reminder or something I want to write down in such a way that I will get back to it. I use Apple reminders for that all the time. It's just like my inbox of stuff on my phone. Um, so I'm constantly saying, like, you know, remind me in three hours to switch the laundry.
Nilay Patel
Heard on The Vergecast — “Apple's plot to crush OpenAI, published Friday, July 17, 2026. Heardvine summarizes and quotes with attribution and timestamps, and links to the original everywhere.
Transcribed via Gemini audio transcription · $0.08
Apple's New Siri AI Beta Shows Promise but Faces Challenges — Heardvine