Apple has changed how it builds the first milestone of iOS 28 and related 2027 operating systems, and Bloomberg's Mark Gurman believes the company could make Siri "more like an agent" as early as next year, according to his Nov. 8 Power On newsletter as reported by 9to5Mac, MacRumors and The Next Web. Apple has not announced an agentic Siri or a new development calendar.
Gurman wrote that chief executive John Ternus pressed software chief Craig Federighi in a recent closed-door meeting to accelerate Apple's software road map and move past only improving Siri, The Next Web reported. The same coverage says Ternus is frustrated by what he sees as Apple's slower pace on AI compared with rivals. Apple did not comment in those stories.
The iOS 28 process change
According to Gurman, Apple usually splits each operating-system milestone into four weeks of coding and four weeks of "convergence," when new features are integrated into the system. For the first milestone of iOS 28, iPadOS 28 and macOS 28, engineers instead got six weeks of coding, exploration and feature development, then two weeks of convergence, MacRumors and 9to5Mac reported from the newsletter.
Employees told Gurman they like the change because it leaves more time to form and test ideas before features lock in. The Next Web, citing the same report, said work on the second milestone, when Apple begins to finalize what ships, was due to start on the Monday after the newsletter. Gurman did not name specific iOS 28 features in the accounts summarized by MacRumors.
What "agentic" would mean for Siri
Gurman contrasted today's Siri with assistants that keep working between user requests. In a passage quoted by 9to5Mac, he wrote that products such as OpenAI's ChatGPT Dots, Meta's Muse and Grok "can keep track of goals, determine what needs to happen next and continue pursuing objectives without the user initiating every individual step." He added that Apple "ultimately wants to go in this direction," and that he believes Siri could become more agent-like as early as next year.
That timing is Gurman's judgment from his reporting, not an Apple ship date. Siri in current iOS 27 releases and the iOS 27.3 developer beta still starts from a user request, according to those same summaries. The beta, described by The Next Web and by Mac Observer summaries of Apple's developer materials, expands in-app actions and App Intents so Siri can carry out more steps inside Apple apps, with broader third-party support expected later. Those actions still wait for the user to begin each run, the reports said.
Gurman also noted that Apple still lacks a computer-use tool of the kind ChatGPT and Claude already offer, which can read a screen and operate apps with a cursor and keyboard, according to The Next Web's account.
Public comments and open questions
On Apple's latest earnings call, Ternus described Siri as "primarily request-based today" and said agentic capabilities are "promising tools for users," The Next Web reported, quoting the call. That public line is milder than the internal urgency Gurman described.
No Apple announcement confirms the six-and-two milestone split, the Ternus-Federighi meeting or a 2027 agentic Siri. The Power On newsletter is paywalled; this story relies on 9to5Mac, MacRumors and The Next Web summaries of Gurman's Nov. 8 report. Until Apple speaks, the process change and the agent timeline remain attributed to Bloomberg's sourcing and to the forecast Gurman wrote in that newsletter.
Source: Bloomberg via 9to5Mac, Michael Burkhardt summarizing Mark Gurman, “Apple aiming to make Siri 'more like an agent' as soon as next year”
Additional sources: MacRumors, Joe Rossignol summarizing Mark Gurman, “Apple Taking New Approach to Developing iOS 28 and macOS 28”; The Next Web, “Apple’s CEO presses Federighi to speed up AI, Bloomberg reports”; X trending, “Apple Speeds Up AI with Agentic Siri and iOS 28 Overhaul”
