Apple Inc. main executive supervising its Crab The virtual assistant told the team that delays in major resources were ugly and embarrassing, and a decision to publicly promote technology before it was ready for the worse subject.
Robby Walker, who acts as an Apple senior director, handed over Stark’s comments during a meeting of all hands to the Siri division, saying the team was facing a bad period. Walker also said it is unclear when the improvements will really be released, according to people with knowledge of the subject, who asked not to be identified because the meeting was private.
The frank discussion shows the extent of the Apple crisis in the field of artificial intelligence, where it is struggling to reach colleagues. Siri – less advanced than rival systems – became a symbol of Apple’s There challenges. And the company’s problems boiled last week, when they publicly recognized that critical resources would be delayed indefinitely.
During the meeting of all hands, Walker suggested that his team’s staff may be angry, disappointed, burned and embarrassed after the funds were postponed. The company was running to prepare technology for this spring, but now the resources are not expected until next year, as soon as possible, people said familiar with the subject.
Still, he praised the team for developing “incredibly impressive” features and promised to offer a sector leading virtual assistant to consumers.
Apple’s shares fell 16% this year until the closing of Thursday, part of a broader defeat of shares that took over technology companies. The actions recovered on Friday, but diminished the gains in the afternoon. Apple rose 1.4% at $ 212.58 from 14:18 in New York.
On February 14, Bloomberg News reported that Apple was fighting bugs and engineering problems in its planned artificial intelligence tools for Siri. At the time, the company postponed the statement from April to May, with the objective of including resources in its IOS 18.5 operating system. Now he wants to add them as an update as early as the iOS 19 software cycle next year.
A California-based Apple spokesman, California, refused to comment on the meeting, which was presented last week.
The resources – presented last June at the World Apple Developer Conference – are fundamental to make Siri a more effective personal assistant. Technology will allow the software to explain users’ personal data to better respond to consultations. Siri, which was first introduced in 2011, will also be able to control apps more accurately and analyze the content that is on a user’s screen.
But when Apple demonstrated WWDC features using a video model, she had only one almost operational prototype, Bloomberg said. Walker told the meeting team that the delays were especially “ugly” because Apple had already shown the resources publicly. “This was not one of those situations in which we showed people our plan after finishing,” he said. “We show people before.”
“To make matters worse,” said Walker, Apple’s Marketing Communications Department wanted to promote improvements. Although they are not ready, the funds were included in a series of marketing campaigns and TV commercials from last year.
Apple praised resources as a key point of sale of the iPhone 16 line, which had no major changes. And it is part of a wider impulse of AI called Apple Intelligence.
Walker also raised questions about meeting current release expectations. Although Apple is seeking iOS 19“It doesn’t mean we are sending,” said Walker. The company has several more developing priorities, and compensations will need to be made, he said.
“We have other appointments at Apple with other projects,” said Walker, citing new hardware software and initiatives. “We want to keep our commitments to them, and we understand that they are now potentially more urgent than the resources that have been postponed.” He said that the decisions about time will be made “case by case” as the work progresses on the products planned for next year.
“Customers don’t just expect these new features, but they also want a more rounded crab,” he said. “We will send these features and as soon as they are ready.”
Walker said there is “intense personal responsibility” about this effort shared by his chief John Giannandrea, the AI chief of Apple, as well as software chief Craig Federighi and other executives.
On Friday, Apple does not immediately plan any of the main executives about the AI crisis, according to people with knowledge of the subject. This decision could theoretically change at any time. Anyway, the company is ready to make management adjustments. He discussed the movement of more senior executives under Giannandrea to help with a recovery effort. The company has already taken advantage of the longtime executive Kim Vorrath – seen as a project fixer – to help the group.
Walker said the decision to postpone resources was made due to quality problems and that the company found that technology only works adequately up to two thirds to 80% of the time, it does not work three times. He said the group “can make more progress to increase these percentages so that users get something they can really count on.”
In recent weeks, Federighi has expressed concerns to other senior executives that resources were not working as announced, promoting the decision to postpone, Bloomberg said. Problems with Apple Intelligence have been clear from the beginning, with the company postponing the first batch of features last year and providing vacant deadlines during its launch event.
Walker defended his group Siri, telling them that they should be proud. The employees spilled their “hearts and souls in this thing,” he said. “I saw so many people giving everything they had to make it happen and make incredible progress together.”
But Apple wants to keep a tall bar and just deliver resources when they are polished, he said. “They are not ready to go to the general public, even if our competitors can have them launched in this state or worse.”
Walker compared the effort to attempt to swim to Hawaii. “We swam hundreds of kilometers – we set a Guinness book for world records for a swim distance – but we haven’t swim to Hawaii yet,” he said. “And we were being pulsed, not for the incredible swimming we did, but the fact that we didn’t reach the destination.”
He showed examples during the meeting of operating technology: he was able to locate the driver’s license number under command and find specific photos of a child. He also demonstrated how technology could accurately manipulate applications through voice control. He incorporated content into an email, added recipients and made other changes.
Walker told the team that they should “feel very proud of the innovative work” made to develop personal research resource, although he says that it doesn’t always work enough.
Still, the company has achieved other goals for Siri. This includes bringing a type-to-siri interface to iOS 18, as well as adding Apple product knowledge to the platform and improved customer understanding. He is planning to offer Apple’s intelligence in several new languages next month and is working overtime to allow China’s resources as part of partnerships with Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and Baidu Inc.
Walker said some employees may feel “relieved” with delays. “If you were using these features in construction, you were probably wondering: Are you ready? How do I feel about sending them to our customers? Is this the right choice? ”
He added that some employees “may be feeling embarrassed”.
“You can have co -workers, friends or family asking what happened, and that doesn’t feel good,” said Walker. “It’s very reasonable to feel all these things.” He said others are feeling exhausted and that his team will be entitled to the time to recharge to prepare for “a lot of hard work ahead.”
The executive said he did not want things to get worse before improving, saying that special attention will need to be given to the integration of existing resources in iOS 19.
Walker finished the optimistic meeting, saying that Apple “will send the largest virtual assistant in the world.”
But there is still a long way ahead. Siri’s late features are just the first step to modernize the software. Apple plans updates to 2027 that will make Siri more conversational, allowing you to better compete with other AI chatbots, Bloomberg said.
This will require a new infrastructure. “There is a lot we will keep and there are significant things we’ll change,” Walker said.
The team “learned a lot together,” he said. “Let’s make the adjustments we need to have a better result from now on.”
© 2025 Bloomberg LP
(This story was not edited by the NDTV team and is automatically generated from a union feed.)