Apple is reportedly working on a way to reduce the wake phrase for its voice assistant to just “Siri,” according to a report from Mark Gurman.
Apple’s looking to change Siri’s trigger phrase from “Hey Siri,” to just “Siri,” according to a report from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman. This means you would just need to say “Siri” followed by a command to activate the smart assistant.
According to Gurman, Apple has been working on this feature for a while and is planning to release it either in 2019 or in 2024. To make the feature work properly, Apple will need to invest in “significant AI training and underlying engineering work,” as the smart assistant will need to comprehend the single wake word in a variety of accents and dialects. The two-word trigger phrase “Hey Siri” makes Siri more likely to recognize it.
It would also put Siri one step ahead of Google Assistant, which requires the “Ok Google” or “Hey Google” phrases to activate it (although you don’t have to repeat the wake word when saying back-to-back commands). Switching to a single wake word could help Siri keep up with Amazon’s Alexa, which already allows users to activate the smart assistant using just “Alexa” instead of “Hey Alexa.” Before discontinuing the voice assistant last year, even Microsoft changed the smart speaker command “Hey Cortana” to “Cortana.”
There will be other changes to Siri in addition to the shorter trigger phrase. Gurman claims that Apple could enhance Siri’s comprehension and processing of user requests while also further integrating it into third-party apps and services. The voice assistant recently received some minor updates from Apple, including the addition of a new voice recorded by a member of the LGBTQ+ community and a new Siri activation sound.
