Apple has created an internal chatbot called Veritas to test the technology behind its planned Siri upgrade, Bloomberg reported. The app lets employees type questions, hold back-and-forth conversations, and perform in-app actions like photo editing or searching through personal data.

Unlike Apple’s past experiments, which were web-based, Veritas is a full, standalone app. However, Bloomberg reports Apple has no plans to release it publicly. Instead, the company is using Veritas to refine and stress-test its upgraded Siri before launch.

Why Apple is pushing to overhaul Siri

Siri was one of the first digital assistants to launch more than a decade ago, but it has fallen behind AI tools such as ChatGPT, Google Gemini, and Perplexity. Users today are turning to conversational engines for search and tasks that go beyond basic voice commands.

Competitors are already integrating AI into their ecosystems. OpenAI has ChatGPT integrated into Microsoft products, Google has Gemini across search and Android, and Perplexity has become another “answer engine” to watch.

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This shift puts pressure on Apple. In May, Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior VP of services, acknowledged that Safari searches had declined as users moved to AI-powered engines like ChatGPT and Perplexity.

That trend matters because Apple earns billions from its Google search deal, and a change in user behavior could threaten that revenue.

Reports about Siri upgrade and Project Linwood

In its latest earnings call, Apple made several remarks about AI investment, prioritization, and its roadmap. CEO Tim Cook affirmed that Apple is “significantly growing” its investment in AI and reallocating internal resources toward AI development.

The company stated it is “making good progress” on a more personalized version of Siri powered by its Apple Intelligence platform. In August, reports said Apple set up a new Answers, Knowledge, and Information team to explore “answer engine” technology.

Earlier this month, Bloomberg reported that Apple is developing an AI search tool for Siri, scheduled to launch next year. According to the report, the tool, internally called World Knowledge Answers, will pull information from the web and deliver conversational results. These efforts are linked to the coming Siri upgrade.

The next version of Siri is being developed under Project Linwood and is expected as early as March 2026. According to Bloomberg, Linwood combines Apple’s in-house foundation models with an external large language model, possibly Google’s Gemini. 

The redesign aims to make Siri more capable by letting it pull from both on-device data and on-screen content to fulfill requests. The overhaul is also meant to expand Siri beyond voice. With Linwood, Apple plans to enable full iPhone navigation through voice control and more context-aware actions.

Veritas is being used internally to test how well these conversational functions work before they are integrated into Siri.

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