Apple may announce a major change to Siri that would move away from the

Gurman: Apple May Announce Drop of 'Hey Siri' Trigger Phrase at WWDC

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2023-06-03 14:00:08

Apple may announce a major change to Siri that would move away from the "Hey ‌Siri‌" trigger phrase currently required to invoke the virtual assistant hands-free at next week's WWDC keynote, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman.

In a new tweet, Gurman reiterated that the change to the ‌Siri‌ trigger phrase may be among next week's announcements. In November, Gurman reported that Apple is working on a way for ‌Siri‌ to be able to understand and respond to commands without the need to use "Hey ‌Siri‌" as a trigger-phrase. Instead, users will simply need to say "‌Siri‌."

The company is working on an initiative to drop the "Hey in the trigger phrase so that a user only needs to say "Siri"—along with a command. While that might seem like a small change, making the switch is a technical challenge that requires a significant amount of AI training and underlying engineering work.

The complexity involves Siri being able to understand the singular phrase "Siri" in multiple different accents and dialects. Having two words — "Hey Siri" — increases the likelihood of the system properly picking up the signal.