Tired of Siri? Perplexity AI could bring a smarter AI assistant experience to iPhones

Perplexity AI CEO Aravind Srinivas has pitched the idea of creating a Siri like voice assistant for iPhones that works on ‘basic stuff’. Notably, Perplexity already has a AI assitant app for Android that competes directly with Google Assitant/ Gemini and this could be an attempt by the company to do a similar thing on iOS. 

“should we make a version of siri that works reliably on basic stuff? what all would you like to see in an iOS voice assistant ? if there’s a good amount of interest, we will prioritize” Srinivas wrote in a post on X.

Siri's recent woes: 

Srinivas' reaction comes at a time when Siri has received a lot of flak from iPhone users for not being able to even answer basic queries while its Android rival gets better almost every single day with Gemini. 

Apple has been aware about the Siri's potential weakness which is why it gave the voice assistant a major makeover with the iOS 18 update, giving it a new look with striking lights around the screen and also promised a major software overhaul that would allow it to answer more nuanced questions while also being able to connect with ChatGPT if need be. 

In practice, Apple's bet on Siri has not been much of a success with users being left even more frustrated than before with the voice assitant's capabilities. The Cupertino based tech giant is reportedly making some major reshuffles internally and is likely looking for a way to improve its AI offering as it readies to introduce the latest version of its iOS operating system at WWDC 2025. 

Perplexity AI vs Big Tech: 

Perplexity has so far had a single minded focus to win the search engine race against Google owing to its AI powered offering. In the recent months, however, the company has been looking to develop more products and add newer models as Google makes its own search engine more AI dependent with Gemini.

The AI startup is already working on an agentic browser called Comet which will compete directly with the likes of Google Chrome and Safari. However, it isn't certain at this point if this browser will be exclusive to Desktop or if it will make its foray to mobile phones as well. 

Meanwhile, the company has also been providing access to a number of AI models including China's DeepSeek, Claude 3.7 Sonnett and OpenAI o3 Mini to improve the search experience for its users. Earlier this year, the company had also rolled out a Deep Research assistant shortly after a popular feature rollout of the same name by ChatGPT.