Apple plans to shorten Siri’s trigger phrase to just ‘Siri’ soon, might release other upgrades as well | Digit

Apple wants to change how people use its voice assistant, Siri. Until now, Siri has been designed to respond to the phrase “Hey Siri” and then execute the accompanying command. For instance, if you want  to lower the playback volume, you would say, “Hey Siri, turn down the volume.” However, as per a report by Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, Apple does not want you to say “Hey Siri” anymore. Instead, the company plans to change it to  just “Siri.” 

Will saying “Siri” instead of “Hey Siri” make any difference?

As per the report, Apple has been working on shortening the Siri activation phrase for months and is expected to float the change next year or in 2024. For the feature to work, Apple will have to muscle through a “significant amount of AI training and underlying engineering work,” as the voice assistant will have to understand the wake word in multiple dialects and accents. Nevertheless, a single-word trigger phrase should be more convenient for users. 

As far as the current trigger phrase “Hey Siri” is concerned, it contains two words, which increases the chance of the system picking it up. Using a single wake word will put Siri ahead of Google’s voice assistant that responds to the trigger phrase “Hey Google” or “Okay Google.” However, Google Assistant does not require users to keep saying the wake phrase when giving commands back-to-back. 

Amazon’s Alexa already responds to a single wake word. Users can say “Alexa” instead of saying “Hey Alexa” to get stuff done. Speaking of voice assistants, Microsoft shifted from a two-word wake phrase to a single-word wake phrase before it shut down Cortana last year. 

Apple could release multiple upgrades for Siri

The one-word trigger phrase is one of many upgrades that could come to Siri. Gurman suggests that Apple could further integrate its voice assistant into third-party services and apps, improving Siri’s ability to understand users’ requests. Recently, Apple introduced a new Siri activation sound and a new voice recorded by a member of the LGBTQ+ community. 

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