“Hey Siri” to “Siri”

Tech Giant Apple is reportedly planning to simplify its voice assistance trigger phrase from “Hey Siri”  to just “Siri,” according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman.

Currently, users have to use the phrase ‘Hey Siri’ to command Voice assistance on the iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, and HomePod but Apple is looking to make that process simpler by letting users drop the “Hey” in the trigger phrase.

In the latest edition of his Power On newsletter, Mark Gurman states that

this is a technical challenge that requires a significant amount of artificial intelligence training and engineering work .” Apple has reportedly been working on this change for several months and hopes to be able to roll it out next year or in 2024, depending on development and testing progress.

Currently, Apple is testing this change with employees and collecting the data needed for Siri training. One of the specific challenges is making sure Siri is able to understand the password in different accents and dialects.

Apple is also working to make improvements to other aspects of the voice assistant, including its integration into third-party applications and services.

” Apple will integrate the voice assistant more deeply into third-party applications and services and improve its ability to understand users and take the correct actions,” says Gurman.

Apple’s willingness to change the phrase from “Hei Siri” to “Siri” shouldn’t come as a surprise. In this way, it would align with what is offered by Amazon, in whose Echo devices to activate the assistant it is sufficient to say “ Alexa ” and not “ Hey Alexa “. Furthermore, Apple would have an edge over Google, in whose devices the activation phrase is “ Hey Google ” or “ OK Google “.

Gurman specifies several times, however, that this is no small feat, and such a change requires a lot of AI training and behind-the-scenes work. For Apple, this is especially true as Siri is already subject to a number of false positives, particularly with Siri activations on the HomePod.