Analyst says Apple may rebrand Siri at WWDC to dodge AI backlash

In mere hours, Apple's big WWDC conference keynote will start. In a last-minute leak, reputable analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has some surprising information to share about the event. According to Kuo, the much-anticipated transparent redesign (referred to as "Liquid Glass" by Mark Gurman) will take a secondary role during the keynote. 

Gurman earlier claimed that Apple will use the new "Liquid Glass" look to distract from the failure to give us the context-aware Siri it promised last year. However, Kuo now claims Apple will indeed give some attention to AI, despite Gurman believing the Cupertino tech giant won't talk too much about it. 


Kuo also expects Apple to underline partnerships with other AI services. This could be related to a reported partnership between Apple and Google in order to make Gemini an optional Siri extension. 

Nevertheless, Kuo's predictions raise some interesting questions. One wonders if Apple rebrands Siri and Apple Intelligence, won't that be considered an acknowledgment that its AI strategy has failed? There's some skepticism about this, to me, it seems more likely for Apple to pretend the failure never happened and focus on the new design, rather than continue talking about AI. 

As for the expected redesign, rumor has it Apple has taken inspiration from visionOS, its OS for Vision Pro, and may have plenty of elements transparent across iOS. It is said the new looks will apply to all OSes by Apple, including iPadOS and macOS. 

Anyway, we'll know for certain quite soon, as the WWDC 2025 keynote starts today, June 9, at 10:00 a.m. Pacific Time. We also expect the new iOS and iPadOS to be rebranded and carry the new number 26: to become iOS 26 and iPadOS 26, respectively.