Siri might kill ChatGPT
Looking at how the Overhaul of Siri might ruin OpenAI and ChatGPTs usage
I think the overhaul of Siri in iOS 27 is a big deal, enough to warrant such a title. Over the last four days,f I’ve found myself drifting to use Siri for all of my general, if sometimes silly, questions. Questions like “How much would it cost me to run a laser quest business?” (£50,000), and “What’s the purpose of that extra little pocket on my jeans?” (it’s for pocket watches). I no longer use Claude or ChatGPT. Siri’s chat app, while simple, delivers exactly what I need: a window where I can ask questions, get quick results, and move on.
I think ChatGPT has most to lose now that Siri is functional. Android has Google Gemini pretty much baked in (or Bixby if you’re really embedded in Samsung), and Siri now serves that purpose for Apple. You no longer need to download a separate app just to ask how to boil an egg. Apple has access to all of your personal information, going back years: texts, emails, calendar, reminders, the lot! And people trust Apple with their privacy. For the most part, users are ok with Apple indexing their data. Privacy has become a much bigger deal in the last five years; Meta, Google, and OpenAI have either destroyed, eroded, or not earned the same level of trust that Apple has. And Apple now gets to reap the benefits of it *.
ChatGPT has forever touted users and install counts, but it’s also pretty clear these chat apps aren’t sticky. None of them manage to lock users in like Instagram or email. Most of ChatGPT’s users are on the free tier, which means for each query someone makes, they’re burning money. Apple, meanwhile, has a mountain of cash, and has priced Siri usage into the hardware. Apple (and Google) just have to wait ChatGPT out.
Looking ahead, I would expect OpenAI to push even harder towards paying business customers. They need revenue to support their free user base. But if I were an OpenAI investor, I’d be looking down at my newly updated iPhone and questioning my financial choices.
* I think there’s a whole blog post about how Apple is only five years away from selling all our data, but this isn’t that piece.