Why Siri Is So Important for Apple

After Apple's WWDC keynote last month, some reporters asked me if Apple's new additions to Siri are reactionary. They assumed that since Amazon, Google and Microsoft have upped the intelligence of their voice assistants, Apple was forced to make Siri more competitive. But to think that Apple's Siri improvements are reactionary shows a lack of understanding about the company's work in artificial intelligence (AI). Apple has been working on speech and voice AI solutions for decades. In fact, in 1992, I got involved with the earliest version of its voice technology research, which was tied to an early AI and machine learning engine.