Apple's gloves-on approach with AI is giving Siri a bad look — Former staffers say it's a "hot potato" being tossed around AIMLessly

Apple has had a rough couple of months, predominantly because of its flopped AI strategy, President Trump's stringent tariffs, and depressed iPhone sales. Compared to its competitors like Microsoft and Google, the iPhone maker can be considered a late bloomer in the AI landscape.

Tim Cook, the company's CEO, has often touted the "not first, but best" mantra, potentially referring to one of the key ingredients that has heavily contributed to its success. However, the same cannot be said about Apple Intelligence, the company's AI strategy unveiled at WWDC 2024.

While Apple Intelligence seemingly passed the privacy and security test, but it's almost been a year and the company is yet to deliver an overhauled Siri assistant. A recent report by Bloomberg's Mark Gurman suggested that Apple might already be 5 years behind Microsoft in the AI arm's race, even with OpenAI's ChatGPT backed into its overhauled assistant.

Perhaps more interestingly, The Information reports that Apple seemingly fumbled its chance to make Siri great again with an injection of sophisticated AI capabilities.

According to the outlet, Apple was supposed to develop small and large language models. The former would have handled simple tasks on-device like setting an alarm, as the latter took on complex tasks like hailing a cab for the iPhone user.

However, Apple pivoted from the plan and decide to develop a unified model that would handle every task thrown at it. The downside is that the company had veered off its safe AI promise, as the model would run in the cloud.

Consequently, several Apple staffers in the Siri division departed after their efforts to revamp the AI assistant were seemingly watered down by top management. The report further details that the abrupt change in plans predominantly contributed to Apple Intelligence's delayed shipment to 2026.

Poor leadership might be holding Apple back in the AI race

OpenAI's ChatGPT in undoubtedly the most popular AI app in the world, recently gaining one million new users in one hour after the company's ChatGPT-4o image generator shipped — flooding social media with Studio GhIbli-inspired memes.

A separate report revealed that ChatGPT's daily visits surpassed Microsoft Copilot's monthly visits in February 2025. For context, ChatGPT had over 52 times more visits than Microsoft Copilot in February 2025 in the U.S., with 173.3 million daily visits compared to Copilot's 98.9 million monthly traffic.

The Information reports that half a dozen former Apple employees who worked in its AI and machine-learning division under John Giannandrea, the company's Senior Vice President of Machine Learning and AI strategy blamed the executive's poor leadership skills, suggesting that it outrightly held back execution plans.

They further indicated that the leadership lacked ambition to take risks on designing future versions of Siri. On the tails of the company's sluggish AI strategy, the team working on the new and improved voice assistant has been branded an unsolicited nickname by other engineers within the company — AIMLess. For context, the nickname is a playful combination of the division's name, AI and machine-learning.

Former Apple staffers refer to Siri as a "hot potato" being passed around different teams with little results to show in terms of performance and improvements.

Elsewhere, Apple has been placed on the spot after allegedly marketing "vaporware" in the form of Apple Intelligence demo videos. Analysts have indicated that the company has barely scratched the surface with its bold gold-plaited promise, only delivering "trivial features," like Writing Tools and Image Playground.

Consequently, the company has found itself in the corridors of justice after complaints emerged, indicating that it used "false" Apple Intelligence ads to drive iPhone 16 sales. The lawsuit cites that the company has violated multiple false advertising and consumer protection laws.