Because of the rise of AI chatbots like ChatGPT and Gemini, and their voice modes, Apple’s once groundbreaking digital assistant Siri is looking a bit long in the tooth. ChatGPT and Gemini's ability to have human-like voice conversations has really changed people’s expectations of what digital assistants like Siri or Alexa should be capable of, but while Alexa has recently upped its game with Alexa+, Siri is still looking like a relic from the digital stone age.
Things were supposed to get better with iOS 18.4 this month, which was going to bring us a new all-singing, all-dancing Siri, capable of personal context and on-screen awareness but sadly Apple has announced that the new Siri has been 'postponed'.
But oddly, the existing Siri seems to be actively getting worse. There’s a whole thread on Reddit, for example, about how Siri can’t answer the simple question, “What month is it?” I tried it on my iPhone 16 and got the same result as everybody else: “Sorry, I don’t understand”.
ChatGPT integration
While Siri was updated in iOS 18.1 to make it better at answering questions, it’s still nowhere near the level of an AI chatbot, and even palms requests off to ChatGPT when it can’t answer them. Unfortunately the process of going to ChatGPT via Siri is slow and painful, and doesn't seem to work as well as just using ChatGPT on its own.
Until Apple gets its act together, I think it’s better just to jump straight to ChatGPT instead of having to go through Siri, or even opt for Gemini, Google's perfectly good AI chatbot, which works fine on iPhone.
Since the “Hey Siri” voice activation can’t be customized to load up any other app, you’re going to need to find another way to fire-up ChatGPT, and the solution lies in the Action button.
Introduced in the iPhone 15 Pro, and available in the iPhone 16 range, the Action button can be customized to do what you want. You can set it to load up useful tools like your torch, magnifying glass, or your favourite app, and in this case we’re going to show you how it can load up ChatGPT, or Gemini, and go straight into its voice mode.
How to load ChatGPT or Gemini via the Action button
In Settings choose Action Button, then Shortcut, then scroll down the list of apps you see here (N.B. don’t go to ChatGPT or Gemini via the Open App… button, because this won’t give you the voice mode options) and choose ChatGPT or Gemini, and then either ‘Start voice conversation’ or ‘Talk Live with Gemini’ from the options that appear and you’re all set.
Now when you give the Action button a press and hold, you’ll jump straight into a voice chat with your preferred AI chatbot.
If you want to turn off Siri, or reduce accidental activations, then in Settings > Apple Intelligence & Siri > Talk & Type to Siri you can turn “Hey Siri” off and change the settings for activating it.
Let’s hope it doesn’t take too long for Siri to get upgraded so it deserves its place back on your iPhone.
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