Apple Opens the Walled Garden: iOS 27 Will Let You Replace Siri with Claude or Gemini
For the first time, Apple will allow third-party AI models as the default assistant on iPhones. Users will be able to choose Gemini or Claude instead of Siri.
In the most significant opening of its ecosystem in years, Apple has confirmed that iOS 27 will allow users to replace Siri with third-party AI models. The initial supported options: Google's Gemini and Anthropic's Claude.
What's Changing
Currently, iPhone users can access ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini through separate apps, but Siri remains the system-level assistant — the one that responds to button presses, voice commands, and system integrations. iOS 27 breaks that exclusivity.
Users will be able to select a default AI assistant in Settings, similar to choosing a default browser or email app. The selected assistant gets system-level access: responding to "Hey Siri" (or a new wake word), integrating with apps, and handling on-device tasks.
Why It Matters
This is a concession from a company built on controlling the full stack. Apple's internal AI efforts — the "Apple Intelligence" suite announced in 2024, now referred to internally as Siri 2.0 — have reportedly struggled to match the capabilities of frontier models from Google and Anthropic.
Rather than fall further behind, Apple is doing what it did with Google Maps and default search: acknowledging that third-party providers can do certain things better, and monetizing the integration instead. The financial terms haven't been disclosed, but analysts expect Google and Anthropic are paying for default placement — similar to Google's estimated $20 billion annual payment to be iPhone's default search engine.
The User Experience
The feature won't ship until iOS 27's public release (expected September 2026), but developer betas are already circulating. Early impressions: Claude handles writing and analysis tasks noticeably better than Siri ever did. Gemini's deep Google integration (Gmail, Calendar, Maps) makes it feel like a natural iOS assistant for users in Google's ecosystem. And Siri? It's still there for users who prefer Apple's privacy-first, on-device-only approach. But the days of Siri being the only option are over.