Apple's revamped Siri, powered by Google's AI models, is launching in beta later this year after two years of delays.

What happened: Apple unveiled Siri AI at its Worldwide Developers Conference, an AI-powered version of its assistant that will launch as a beta later this year. The update is designed to transform Siri from a basic voice assistant into a digital helper that can pull context from your apps—for example, recalling a podcast your sister recommended via text without you opening any separate apps.

Why it matters: Apple's own AI models fell short, so the company signed an agreement with Google in January to use Google's Gemini models to power the improved Siri. Craig Federighi, Apple's senior vice president of software engineering, clarified that Siri AI is not a rebranded version of Google's Gemini assistant—Apple built its own family of Apple Frontier Models and refined them using outputs from Google's Gemini Frontier models, but uses none of Google's deployment infrastructure or Google Search as its knowledge base.

What to watch: Siri AI will launch as a beta later this year. Early demos suggest the new Siri delivers on Apple's initial vision for an AI-enhanced assistant that can recognize what you want and surface it from your device or the web.