Buttressed by a Bloomberg report from Mark Gurman, Apple CEO John Ternus has pushed software engineering chief Craig Federighi to accelerate the company's AI roadmap. In a closed-door meeting held in recent weeks, Ternus asked for more urgency and for progress beyond the small improvements to Siri already under way, per the report.
For Apple, the stakes go beyond one product. Siri is only part of a broader AI race in which rivals are shipping assistant tools that act on their own. The meeting suggests the company's new CEO wants the software organization moving faster, at a time when the pressure on Apple's AI leadership is under heavy public scrutiny.
Ternus pushes Federighi on Apple's AI roadmap
The Bloomberg report says Ternus is frustrated by what he sees as a reluctance inside Apple to embrace AI with the same urgency as competitors. He wants Federighi, who became Apple's AI czar after the dismissal of the company's former AI leader last year, to move the roadmap faster.
There is no indication that Federighi is leaving Apple. Gurman reports he has made succession planning a very low priority. That said, the report describes a hands-on management style that has left some engineers and designers feeling they have limited influence over product direction.
A second structural issue is time horizon. Federighi reportedly plans on a 12-to-18-month cycle, while hardware engineering works on roadmaps that span years. Closing that gap is likely one of the changes Apple wants in the coming period, according to the report.
Siri could become more like an agent by next year
The report also covers where Apple wants to take Siri. Apple shipped its long-awaited personalized Siri with iOS 27, but the assistant still does not take proactive actions for users the way newer AI agents do. According to Gurman, Apple could make Siri more like an agent as early as next year.
He points to tools such as Dots, Muse and Grok Bot, which can track goals and continue pursuing them without the user initiating every step. Apple's existing frameworks, including App Intents, could let it reach that kind of behavior without depending as heavily on computer-use capabilities, the report notes.
The company is also experimenting with a different engineering pipeline. For the first iOS 28 development cycle, Apple reportedly gave engineers six weeks of coding and exploration followed by two weeks of convergence, compared with the usual four weeks for each phase. Employees said they liked the change because it leaves more room to develop ideas before locking them in.
