If you happen to had been to take a shot each time somebody talked about “agentic” AI at the newest tech keynotes — Google I/O, Microsoft Construct and NVIDIA’s Computex blowout — you would be sick very quickly. It is the trade’s newest buzzword, describing AI brokers that may do work in your behalf with none direct enter, like robotically including conferences to your calendar primarily based in your emails. It is as if the tech world cannot wait to take a seat again and let AI take the wheel. We’ll in all probability see spectacular agentic AI inside a decade or so, however I fear about leaping right into a world of brokers with our present batch of AI fashions, which might nonetheless hallucinate and are not totally reliable. The concept of letting present AI brokers act totally on their very own looks as if sheer madness.
Apple, as soon as once more, appears to be pondering a bit otherwise. Agentic AI was solely briefly talked about throughout its WWDC 2026 keynote this week. As an alternative, Apple spent the vast majority of the time speaking concerning the methods its new Siri AI might truly be helpful: Like discovering a buddy’s new handle buried in an extended textual content message thread, or determining the right way to get tickets to an unique live performance. For probably the most half, Siri AI responds to your instructions, it simply has the advantage of fashionable AI fashions to higher synthesize information.
Primarily based on our early take a look at Siri AI at WWDC 2026, it appears to work as marketed, although we’ll have to carry out long-term testing to see if it actually holds up. We’re additionally coping with the primary developer beta, so there’s a whole lot of room for issues to alter between now and when Apple’s newest OS updates drop this fall. However as an AI skeptic, I am shocked to seek out myself intrigued by the probabilities of Siri AI, extra so than I have been for something round Microsoft’s Copilot.
Apple’s dedication to privateness with Personal Cloud Compute additionally offers it a leg up on Google and Microsoft — the corporate says it solely uploads related information, makes all of it nameless and would not observe server logs. For its new AFM3 Cloud Professional mannequin, which runs on Google’s servers with NVIDIA-powered {hardware}, Apple has additionally upgraded Personal Cloud Compute to supply an identical quantity of safety.
“Whereas we completely decrease what is distributed as much as PCC, the important factor about PCC is, architecturally, that is at that time an effectivity measure,” Craig Federighi, Apple’s SVP of software program engineering, stated throughout a WWDC panel (by way of Ars Technica). “As a result of PCC itself, by design from the bottom up, goes to vaporize any document of that information the second after it solutions your query… This isn’t saved. It is all in a type the place it is utterly transient.”
Apple could not resist the attract of agentic AI totally, although. And never surprisingly, it is also tied to one of many extra troubling new Apple Intelligence options: The flexibility to robotically change your compromised passwords. Apple claims the brand new Passwords app “securely navigates by means of web sites to register and improve their accounts to sturdy passwords.”
The potential points are apparent: What else can occur when Apple Intelligence logs into that web site? Can I actually belief the password it comes up with? Then once more, I additionally know I nonetheless have compromised passwords on unimportant web sites, would not or not it’s higher to have these robotically mounted? The aim of constructing customers safer could also be well worth the slight lack of company by means of Apple’s agent, however it’s a slippery slope.
Apple can also be utilizing agentic AI with Safari’s new “Notify Me” characteristic, which helps you to arrange an alert for particular modifications on an internet site. It could possibly be helpful for monitoring value modifications or information updates round a selected group — it is definitely much better than maintaining a tab open eternally and continuously refreshing it. It is simple to see how Apple might take this characteristic additional: Perhaps ultimately AI might robotically buy a sizzling product earlier than it goes out of inventory, or ship an electronic mail to a bunch of buddies if you happen to’re eyeing a trip property’s pricing.
You might argue that Apple is much behind its rivals in terms of AI on the whole, and also you’d have some extent. Microsoft and Google rushed to shove their AI capabilities into each nook and cranny of their client merchandise, which made their traders comfortable (even when it arguably made these merchandise worse). Apple, in the meantime, has struggled with delays for its AI-powered Siri improve, which was first introduced two years in the past. The primary batch of Apple Intelligence options, like notification summaries and Genmojis, had been pretty underwhelming (and within the case of these summaries, it led to some embarrassing errors).
Apple is never the primary to new expertise, although. It did not make the primary MP3 participant, smartphone or ultraportable laptop computer. As an alternative, the corporate has usually centered on fixing obvious points from early market entrants, making its options extra usable for shoppers, and, after all, charging a ton of cash for the privilege of utilizing its extra refined merchandise. The iPod was a hit as a result of it might maintain a ton of music, was straightforward to make use of and it was tied to iTunes, the primary main try at making digital music legally out there. The iPhone succeeded by leapfrogging keyboard-bound smartphones with a bigger display and extra usable apps.
With Siri AI, Apple has the hindsight of seeing the place Microsoft failed with Copilot, and it has a clearer imaginative and prescient of the AI options folks may very well wish to use. It’s going to undoubtedly lean into extra agentic options as its fashions enhance and shoppers get extra used to AI. I am simply hoping Apple stays considered about the way it applies agentic options. I am already apprehensive about Siri mishearing my voice instructions, I do not wish to fear about it clearing out my checking account.
