Apple's Siri Overhaul Could Bring Voice Controls to Third Party Apps

Owing to the rising criticism from its users and investors and the unforgiving competition from other brands, Apple continues to develop new AI features and its Siri has been at the forefront of all the upcoming changes. The much anticipated Siri upgrade is expected to arrive early 2026 and a new report now hints that Apple's digital assistant could also allow users to control third-party apps with their just voice. 

As per Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, Apple is developing a version of Siri that can work with third-party apps like WhatsApp, Facebook, YouTube, Amazon, Uber, Threads and more. This support will come as part of the upcoming App Intents system that will allow users to perform actions on their behalf.

App Intents will offer users the ability to control apps fully using Siri voice commands. Here's what Gurman suggests the new system could offer:

With nothing but your voice, you’ll be able to tell Siri to find a specific photo, edit it and send it off. Or comment on an Instagram post. Or scroll a shopping app and add something to your cart. Or log in to a service without touching the screen. Essentially, Siri could operate your apps like you would – with precision, inside their own interfaces.

The new system is expected to come around the same time as AI-powered Siri, that's set to release in March 2026. But don't expect it to arrive on day one, as Apple is currently only testing the functionality across the aforementioned third-party apps. Siri's upcoming functions will, however, be limited or unavailable on sensitive apps like banking and health apps, at least during the initial rollout. 

Besides Siri and App Intents, the Cupertino company is also working on an AI-powered answer engine tool for answering general-knowledge questions. This will be developed by a new "Answers, Knowledge and Information" (AKI) team, spearheaded by former Siri head Robby Walker. 

There's a lot resting on Apple Intelligence and the upgraded Siri that was promised with iOS 18 last year. The brand continues facing backlash from its shareholders and users alike but if it can turn it around and fix its engineering delays, it might just fare well.