Apple is planning to change Siri’s trigger phrase from “Hey Siri”, to just “Siri” according to a report(Opens in a new window) from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman. 

This would mean you would just need to say “Siri” followed by a command to activate the smart assistant. 

As Gurman reports, Apple’s been working on this feature for the past several months and hopes to roll it out next year or in 2024. Despite it seeming a relatively small change, the Bloomberg reporter writes in his Power On newsletter that the switch is a “technical challenge” that needs a considerable amount of AI training as well as underlying engineering work. 

Moving to a single wake word would bring Siri in line with Amazon’s Alexa, which is already activated using just “Alexa”. And Microsoft made a similar change in 2018(Opens in a new window) when it switched the wake words for its voice assistant from “Hey Cortana” to “Cortana”. 

Meanwhile, Google Assistant still requires(Opens in a new window) its users to say “Ok Google” or “Hey Google” to activate it which means this move would put Apple one step ahead of Google in this regard. 

The change to Siri’s wake words isn’t the only one expected. Gurman notes that Apple could further “integrate the voice assistant into third-party apps and services”.

Recommended by Our Editors

Move Over, Siri: Google Tips Robots That Can Actually Understand What You Want

Apple's Siri Can Now Process Many Requests Without an Internet Connection

Siri Now Talks About the Coronavirus

In February the company added a fifth American voice(Opens in a new window) to Siri, which was made to sound gender-neutral. Last year, Siri voices were recorded by Black actors(Opens in a new window) in a diversity and inclusion drive, and the voice assistant no longer defaults to a female voice with users being made to choose their voice type preference.

In other news for Apple, the company is set to launch its new crop of Macbooks early next year(Opens in a new window), and its marketing chief Greg Joswiak announced future iPhones will comply with an EU directive requiring phone, tablets, and cameras to use USB-C charging ports before the end of 2024. It means the iPhone 16 will likely drop the Lightning port.