Apple Lets You Replace Siri With Claude, Gemini, or ChatGPT

Apple just did something it has never done before. At today’s WWDC 2026 keynote — reportedly Tim Cook’s last — the company announced iOS 27 Extensions: a new framework that lets you replace Siri as your default AI with Claude, Gemini, or ChatGPT across every Apple Intelligence feature on your iPhone.

This is a big deal. Apple has spent 15 years building a walled garden. Today, it opened the gate.

What Is iOS 27 Extensions?

Extensions is a new App Store framework that plugs third-party AI models directly into the heart of iOS 27. It opens Siri, Writing Tools, and Image Playground to third-party AI providers via a dedicated App Store marketplace. Once you install a supported AI app — Claude, ChatGPT, or Gemini — you can go into Settings and set it as your preferred AI across all Apple Intelligence features system-wide.

That means when you ask Siri a question, tap Writing Tools in Notes, or use Image Playground, your chosen AI responds — not Apple’s. Apple is ending its single-provider ChatGPT model in favour of an open, competitive platform.

Gemini Is Still the Engine Under the Hood

There’s an important distinction to understand. Extensions is separate from the deeper Gemini integration Apple announced earlier this year.

Apple may be paying roughly $1 billion annually for Gemini access, with Gemini processing queries through Apple’s Private Cloud Compute — keeping user data isolated from Google’s own infrastructure. That’s the foundation layer. It powers the new Siri at a system level.

Extensions is the layer on top. Claude and ChatGPT lost out in the model selection for the deeper Siri integration, but come back into the system “through the back door” via Extensions. Think of Gemini as the engine and Extensions as the dashboard that lets you choose who’s driving.

What Each AI Is Best At on iPhone

Not all AI assistants are equal. Here’s a quick breakdown of what each one brings to an iPhone:

Claude leads for writing and coding precision. Gemini excels at real-time research and multimodal tasks. ChatGPT is strongest for natural voice interaction and general daily use.

In practice, most users will stick with whatever comes default. But for power users — writers, developers, researchers — the ability to route queries to the right tool is genuinely useful. A developer might set Claude as their default for its coding strength. A student might prefer Gemini for research. A casual user might keep ChatGPT for its natural conversation style.

Why Apple Is Doing This Now

Two years ago, Apple promised a context-aware, intelligent Siri. It never shipped. Apple even paid $250 million in a settlement over unfulfilled Siri promises. That’s not a small footnote — it’s the backdrop to everything announced today.

The AI race moved faster than Apple could keep up with internally. Rather than continue falling behind, the company made a strategic call: open the platform, let the best AI models compete, and keep Apple’s role as the trusted, privacy-focused layer in the middle.

It’s a smart move. Apple doesn’t need to win the AI model race. It just needs to own the device that runs whichever model wins. With 1 billion active devices, that’s a powerful position to be in.

What It Means for Anthropic, Google, and OpenAI

The move gives Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google direct distribution to over 1 billion Apple device users. That’s an enormous new channel — and a massive incentive for all three companies to optimise their iPhone experience.

For Anthropic in particular, this is a significant moment. Claude has been growing fast in enterprise and developer circles, but consumer reach has lagged behind ChatGPT. iPhone distribution changes that equation. If even a fraction of iPhone users switch their default AI to Claude, that’s tens of millions of new users.

For OpenAI, the picture is more complicated. iOS 27 strips OpenAI of its unique advantage on the iPhone — it’s no longer the only third-party AI with a privileged position in iOS. Competition is now built into the operating system itself.

When Does It Arrive?

iOS 27 developer betas are available today. Public betas follow in July. The full release — including Extensions — is expected in autumn 2026 alongside the new iPhone lineup.

To use it, you’ll need to install the AI app of your choice from the App Store, then navigate to Settings → Apple Intelligence & Siri → Default AI Model. From there, you pick your preferred assistant and it takes over system-wide.

The Bottom Line

This is one of the most significant shifts in iPhone history. Apple has always controlled the experience end to end. Today, it handed part of that control to users — and to the AI companies competing for their attention.

The AI assistant wars just moved to the world’s most valuable device platform. And for the first time, users get to decide who wins on their own phone. For more on how AI is reshaping the tools we use every day, see our roundup of the best free AI tools worth using right now.

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