Apple's Major Shift: Siri to Integrate Gemini, iPhone Users Can Now Choose Claude - What Does This Mean for You?

At 7 am, Ms. Lin in Taipei shouted to her iPhone, "Siri, show me today's schedule" - only to receive another irrelevant response, "I found these on the web." However, such days may be coming to an end. In the latest announcement, Apple made a drastically different decision from the past: instead of insisting on "doing all AI itself," it will now use Google Gemini to enhance Siri and introduce an "Extensions" system that allows users to choose their own AI. For hundreds of millions of iPhone users worldwide, including over 10 million in Taiwan, this means that their phone assistants will become smarter and, for the first time, allow them to choose which AI to use. In this article, we summarize the event, analyze its impact on Taiwanese users and the industry, and provide TheAI Academy's perspective.

Event Background: Why Apple's AI Has Come to This Point

Over the past two years, Apple Intelligence's progress has been considered to be lagging behind OpenAI and Google. Siri's understanding and generation capabilities have fallen behind its competitors, and its self-developed models are unlikely to catch up in the short term. Under this pressure, Apple has chosen a pragmatic approach - instead of stubbornly insisting on its own insufficient models, it will integrate the strongest external AI to benefit users directly.

Key Points of This Announcement

• Siri enhanced by Google Gemini: its ability to understand semantics and process complex commands is expected to improve significantly.
• Introduction of the Extensions system: users can choose which AI to use for Apple Intelligence functions - ChatGPT, Google Gemini, or Anthropic Claude, which is available as an iPhone option for the first time.
• Each AI has its own voice: you will clearly know which model is responding to you.
• iOS 27 Beta 1 released simultaneously: developers and early adopters can experience it first.

Market Impact Analysis

For Taiwanese iPhone users: the most direct benefit is that Siri becomes more practical - many people used to think that Siri "can only set alarms," but with Gemini's enhancement, its Q&A, summarization, and cross-app operations will become more reliable. More importantly, users now have "choice": those who value Chinese writing can choose Claude, those who deeply use Google services can choose Gemini, and those who want a comprehensive ecosystem can choose ChatGPT. For those who are unsure of the differences, we recommend checking How to choose between ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini.

For corporate applications: Apple's opening up of multiple AI options means that employees' iPhones will have switchable AI assistants built-in, and companies will need to pay more attention to data governance in BYOD (bring your own device) scenarios - which work data can be handed over to cloud AI and which cannot, requiring clear policies.

For developers: if the Extensions system is open to third-party connections, it will be another distribution channel following the App Store. Being able to turn their AI services into "optional items" on iPhones will be a huge exposure opportunity.

Future Development Trends

Apple's move is equivalent to formally announcing the arrival of the "AI platformization" era - phones will no longer be tied to a single AI, but instead, users can choose AI like selecting a default browser. It can be expected that other phone manufacturers will follow suit with "multi-AI options," each AI house will be more actively competing to become the "default on devices," and "on-device privacy protection" will become the next competitive focus. For users, the dominant power is slowly shifting from manufacturers back to themselves.

TheAI Academy's Summary and Commentary

Honestly, Apple's willingness to acknowledge that "its AI can't beat others" is more surprising to me than the technology itself. If this were a few years ago, Apple would never have done this. But this time, it made the best choice for users - putting the decision of "which AI to use" back in their hands.

In the short term, you will feel the difference: Siri will finally stop being irrelevant. In the long term, "choosing AI on iPhone" will become as natural as choosing an input method.

Our advice is simple: after upgrading, spend five minutes in the settings to see which AI options are available, and choose one based on what you do most often - those who write frequently can choose Claude, those who rely heavily on Google can choose Gemini, and those who want an all-around AI can choose ChatGPT. After choosing, our AI prompt library will be more helpful. The only thing to remind you of is privacy: before handing your data over to cloud AI, think about whether the content can be leaked.

A one-sentence commentary: this is not Apple admitting defeat, but it finally putting users back at the center - which is the direction we welcome.

(This article is compiled based on public announcements and media reports, and the functions and schedules are subject to Apple's official announcements.)

Data Sources

• Apple Newsroom official release
• CNBC: tech giants' AI competition report