The latest iteration of Siri, dubbed Siri AI, was launched to the general public this month as part of iOS 27. This updated version of Siri is being rolled out to users gradually through a waitlist system, and it’s labeled as a ‘beta’ version, suggesting Apple still has improvements to make in upcoming releases.
The new Siri shows significant improvements in answering complex questions with rich knowledge, searching through your messages and notes for personalized context-based queries, and taking action based on what’s displayed on your screen with onscreen awareness. However, not everyone is celebrating this upgrade …
Based on social media feedback, several factors are contributing to user disappointment with the new Siri. Some users expect it to perform tasks that Apple never promised would be possible, while others are encountering performance and reliability bugs that make regular use of the assistant frustrating.
Here are the five primary categories of complaints we’ve observed from early adopters of Siri AI:
**Network connectivity issues**
Some users testing the new Siri repeatedly encounter a ‘Sorry, something went wrong’ error when activating it. This appears to be related to network communication problems between the phone and the Siri cloud backend, which may be resolved by disabling a VPN or changing Wi-Fi network settings.
However, the Siri interface doesn’t provide users with specific information about the problem, leaving them with what feels like a ‘useless’ voice assistant. We also suspect the Apple cloud infrastructure may be experiencing intermittent downtime, which could also cause requests to fail.
**Indexing problems: new Siri cannot always locate items that old Siri could find**
While the new Siri is intended to significantly improve at finding things on your device, some users are experiencing the opposite. When asking something like ‘Add eggs to my grocery list in Reminders’, Siri responds that it cannot locate the list. We’ve documented repeated instances of users attempting to use new Siri to turn off all their alarms, only for it to report that they have no alarms set. Others report that their HomeKit accessories cannot be consistently found by name.
These issues appear to be related to underlying search indexing bugs, though it’s unclear if users can follow specific steps to resolve them. Some Apple Watch users are encountering particularly unusual cases like ‘I can’t set a timer because the Clock app isn’t installed on this device’.
**Requires iPhone to be unlocked to answer requests**
New Siri seems to require the device be unlocked for many requests, even when the ‘allow Siri when locked’ toggle is enabled in Settings. This applies to various types of queries, which old Siri never required the device to be unlocked for. Naturally, many people attempt to invoke Siri in situations where the phone is locked, such as in a car or on the go with AirPods.
It appears that whenever new Siri attempts to access the semantic index to gain personal context, it fails if the phone is locked. However, this makes even simple commands like ‘Send message to [person name]’ more annoying, when old Siri handled such tasks without requiring the device to be unlocked.
**Slow to respond to queries, especially on Apple Watch**
Another common complaint is that new Siri responds more slowly than before. Although on-device models play a role in how new Siri operates, much of its processing occurs in the cloud with Private Cloud Compute, meaning a slow network connection makes new Siri sluggish in responding, even for basic requests like sending messages or checking notifications.
The speed complaints are particularly pronounced when using Siri AI with watchOS 27 running on an Apple Watch Series 9 or later, where even saying something like ‘start a 5 minute timer’ can take many seconds to resolve—a disappointing regression, as these used to be processed almost instantly.
**Missing features or unreliable commands compared to old Siri**
Despite all the new capabilities of Siri AI, some features of the classic Siri have not yet been integrated into the new system. For instance, Apple’s documentation notes that asking about your Health app data is not currently supported by Siri AI. Users who previously used the ChatGPT integration can no longer prefix their command with ‘Use ChatGPT’ to have their request directed accordingly.
There are also specific phrasings of commands that the old Siri would understand but the new Siri gets confused about. Naturally, this frustrates users who have become accustomed to asking something specific on a regular basis. This is partly due to the fact that new Siri has the potential to do so much more, making some specifically-worded queries ambiguous compared to the much smaller scope of classic Siri.
Aside from these categories of bugs, we’ve also observed users complaining about how new Siri is presented in the user interface. This includes criticisms of the annoyingly prominent ‘Ask Siri’ buttons that have been added across the operating system, the lack of a visible transcript of what the phone heard the user say in the new Dynamic Island UI, the fact that the middle of the screen swipe-down gesture to reveal their notifications has been commandeered to show Siri & Spotlight instead, and other complaints.
As mentioned earlier, new Siri is marked as a beta version and this indicates that more capabilities and fixes will follow in future updates. Apple has not yet disclosed a timeline, though, apart from announcing a rollout to a handful of more languages, scheduled for October.
Top comment by Willian Macedo
I’ve experienced most of these issues as well as some strange ones. Last night, for instance, I asked Siri to set two alarms for me, one at 9:30 a.m. and one at 9:40 a.m. This morning I woke up – late, of course – and noticed that there was a silent alarm (??). I tried it once more. Guess what? Siri was creating alarms but setting the sound to ‘none’. What a frustrating experience. Back to old Siri, I guess.
In the meantime, if you’re experiencing any of the issues described above, you may want to revert to classic Siri:
**How to disable Siri AI and revert to old Siri**
The simplest way to disable Siri AI on your device and quickly switch back to classic Siri is to use controls in Screen Time. Open the Settings app and navigate to Screen Time -> Content & Privacy Restrictions -> Siri and change Allowed Siri version from ‘Siri AI (Beta)’ to ‘Siri Classic’.
You can then return to this menu later and toggle it back if you want to try Siri AI again.
If you don’t want to use Screen Time, you can also go into Siri settings directly and turn off Siri altogether. When you re-enable it, you should be able to choose between enabling Siri Classic or Siri AI.