Apple May Drop the 'Hey' From Siri Activation, Report Says
The change to one-word Siri activation probably won't take place until next year or 2024, according to Bloomberg.
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Apple users might not have to yell "Hey, Siri" for too much longer, Bloomberg reported Sunday. The tech giant is apparently looking to shorten its voice assistant's activation word to just "Siri."
This would bring Apple in line with Amazon's Alexa service, which can be activated by uttering only "Alexa." Meanwhile, Google's Assistant still needs "Hey, Google," or "OK, Google," in order to trigger a response.
Siri testing has been ongoing for months, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman wrote in his Power On newsletter. But that doesn't mean that we're likely to see the single-word rollout anytime soon. Even such a small change requires a massive amount of AI training and engineering work, Gurman noted, meaning the update might not be released until next year or even into 2024.
Apple is looking to integrate Siri further into third-party apps, Gurman reported, while improving its ability to comprehend its users.
"It's no secret that—while Siri has improved over the past few years—the system can still often misunderstand users or take the wrong course of action on a request. The pace of improvements also hasn't always kept up with the competition," Gurman wrote.
Using a single word, like Amazon does with Alexa, allows for faster requests, especially when you need the assistant to complete more than one action.
Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.