Siri has been around for over a decade. For most of that time, it has been a helpful but limited assistant. You ask it something. It responds. And then it stops. That basic pattern may be about to change in a big way. According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, Apple is expected to eventually build its own version of an AI agent, one that works much like OpenClaw, capable of handling tasks on your device without you having to direct every single step.
This is not an official announcement. Apple has not confirmed anything yet. But the signals coming out of the company are hard to ignore.
What Is OpenClaw and Why Does It Matter
OpenClaw is an agentic AI system. Unlike a regular assistant that responds to one command at a time, an agentic system can independently operate your device and handle multiple tasks on your behalf without constant input. It would represent a massive shift from the request-based setup we have right now.
Apple’s current Siri, rebuilt on a large language model foundation and shipping in iOS 27, remains a request-based system rather than a fully agentic one. You ask Siri to set a reminder, it sets a reminder. You ask it to play a song, it plays a song. But if you want it to read an email, summarise it, draft a reply, and send it without you touching your phone at every step, the current Siri cannot do that.
OpenClaw can. So can tools from Google and Anthropic. And that is precisely why Apple needs to catch up.
What Gurman and Apple’s Own Engineers Are Saying
Gurman’s prediction comes on the back of comments made by Apple’s Siri engineering chief, Mike Rockwell, following last week’s WWDC keynote. Rockwell described the new engine behind Siri as a completely modern architecture built for extensibility. That is engineer-speak for something that is designed to grow into new capabilities. Apple’s SVP Craig Federighi also called agentic computing experimental while acknowledging the space, without committing to a specific timeline.
With Apple’s unified memory architecture, the company is in a unique position to introduce its own version of an AI agent that would complement Siri. Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman believes this could be Apple’s long-term direction.
Deploying an agentic system at Apple’s scale raises challenges beyond model capability. Giving an AI agent persistent control over iOS, iPadOS, and macOS apps requires careful privilege separation, per-app consent systems, and sandboxing that prevents unauthorised access to user data. Apple has always been careful about privacy, and building something like this without compromising that would take time to get right.
What This Could Mean for iPhone Users
If Apple does build this, the day-to-day experience of using an iPhone could change significantly. Instead of tapping through multiple apps to complete a task, you could describe what you want done and let Siri handle it. Book a cab, reschedule a meeting, reply to a message based on context, or organise files. All of it, hands-free.
The pieces are already falling into place. Apple Intelligence, App Intents, Shortcuts, Private Cloud Compute, and Apple Silicon together form a plausible foundation for what comes next.
Apple may be arriving late to this space. But if anyone can make an AI agent feel safe, private, and genuinely useful at a mass scale, it is probably Apple.
Syed Ziyauddin is a media and international relations enthusiast with a strong academic and professional foundation. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Mass Media from Jamia Millia Islamia and a Master’s in International Relations (West Asia) from the same institution.
He has work with organizations like ANN Media, TV9 Bharatvarsh, NDTV and Centre for Discourse, Fusion, and Analysis (CDFA) his core interest includes Tech, Auto and global affairs.
Tweets @ZiyaIbnHameed
