For the first time in Siri’s 15-year history, Apple is preparing to let you rip out the intelligence behind its voice assistant and replace it with a rival AI of your choosing. Under an internal project codenamed “Extensions,” the company is building a framework for iOS 27, iPadOS 27, and macOS 27 that would allow third-party models, including Anthropic’s Claude and Google’s Gemini, to power Siri and the full suite of Apple Intelligence features across the operating system.
If it ships as described, the change would transform Siri from a closed system into something closer to a switchboard: a familiar interface that routes your requests to whichever AI brain you trust most. It would also represent Apple’s most dramatic platform shift since the App Store opened the iPhone to outside developers in 2008.
What Bloomberg and Reuters have confirmed
The reporting originates with Bloomberg’s May 2026 report, which describes the Extensions framework as spanning Apple’s next-generation operating systems. Through it, users could select a third-party AI service to replace Apple’s own models for writing tools, text summarization, and conversational queries. A user who prefers Claude’s writing style or Gemini’s search-connected answers could set that preference once in the Settings app and have it apply system-wide.
That scope goes far beyond what Apple offers today. Currently, Siri can hand off certain prompts to OpenAI’s ChatGPT, but users cannot pick a different provider or route broader Apple Intelligence tasks through a competing model. The Extensions framework would open direct integration points so that other chatbot apps plug into Siri natively, not just as a fallback.
Reuters independently confirmed several operational details: Apple is already running internal tests with both Google and Anthropic, the feature would use an opt-in model tied to App Store app compatibility, and Apple declined to comment on the project. All information so far comes from people familiar with the company’s plans, not from official statements.
Why Apple is doing this now
Two forces appear to be converging. The first is regulatory. The European Union’s Digital Markets Act (Regulation (EU) 2022/1925) requires large platform operators to maintain contestable markets for default services, including voice assistants. Apple had already begun preparing to let EU iPhone users choose a default assistant other than Siri, a compliance step that signaled the company was rethinking its locked-down approach. The Extensions project looks like a global expansion of that logic: rather than offering choice only where legally required, Apple appears to be building a worldwide architecture for AI provider selection.
The second force is competitive. Google, OpenAI, and Anthropic are all iterating on their models at a pace Apple’s in-house AI team has struggled to match. By turning the iPhone into a neutral platform where the best available model wins, Apple sidesteps the need to out-build every rival and instead positions its hardware as the premium stage on which they all compete. It is a strategy the company has used before: Apple did not need to make every great app itself once the App Store existed.
What this means for ChatGPT’s current role
OpenAI’s ChatGPT currently holds a privileged position as the only third-party model integrated with Siri. If Extensions launches as reported, that exclusivity disappears. ChatGPT would become one option among several, competing on merit rather than on a bilateral deal with Apple. OpenAI could still build an Extensions-compatible app, but it would no longer enjoy a structural advantage over Claude, Gemini, or any other provider that meets Apple’s requirements.
Neither OpenAI, Anthropic, nor Google has publicly commented on the project. The commercial terms, technical requirements, and revenue-sharing arrangements between Apple and its testing partners remain undisclosed.
Big open questions
Privacy architecture. Apple has built its brand around on-device processing and minimal data sharing. Routing Siri queries through a third-party cloud model raises immediate questions: What data leaves the device? How long can a partner store it? Will Apple require end-to-end encryption, strict retention limits, or independent audits of partner models? The opt-in and App Store compatibility model hints at gatekeeping, but the specifics are not yet public.
Depth of integration. Current descriptions suggest Extensions could power writing tools, summarization, and conversational queries. They do not clarify whether outside models will gain access to sensitive on-device data like messages, emails, or photos. Apple could offer a shallow integration, where the model only sees text the user explicitly sends, or a deeper one, where it can reason over personal context the way Apple’s own on-device systems do. The difference matters enormously for usefulness and for risk.
Ecosystem breadth. Bloomberg and Reuters name Claude and Gemini as test partners, but neither report addresses whether providers like Meta, Mistral, or smaller AI startups could also build Extensions-compatible apps. How open Apple makes this framework will determine whether it creates genuine competition or simply replaces one exclusive partner with a small, curated club.
Timeline. Apple has not publicly confirmed the Extensions project, its scope, or its release window. The company’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference, typically held in June, is the most likely venue for an announcement. But Apple’s software roadmap has a history of ambitious features being delayed or re-scoped late in development. Readers should treat Extensions as highly probable but not guaranteed in its reported form.
What to watch at WWDC 2026
If Apple follows its usual cadence, WWDC in June 2026 is where Extensions would be unveiled alongside iOS 27. The key details to listen for: how many AI providers are supported at launch, what privacy guardrails Apple imposes on third-party models, and whether the feature ships globally or rolls out region by region as the company has done with other Apple Intelligence capabilities.
The underlying bet is striking. For over a decade, Apple treated Siri as a walled garden, tightly controlled and stubbornly proprietary even as it fell behind competitors. Extensions signals that Apple has accepted a different reality: in the generative AI era, the most valuable thing it can offer is not a single assistant but a platform where the best assistants compete for your attention, all running on Apple hardware, all playing by Apple’s rules. Whether that vision survives contact with the complexities of privacy, partnerships, and regulation will determine whether this becomes a landmark moment for the iPhone or another ambitious plan that quietly shrinks before it ships.
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*This article was researched with the help of AI, with human editors creating the final content.
