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  • HarmonyOS 7 steps into the AI gap Apple left open in China

    Four days after Apple confirmed that Siri AI would not launch in China, Huawei took the stage in Dongguan and declared HarmonyOS 7 the beginning of the agent era. The gap Apple could not fill, Huawei has moved into with an architecture built specifically for it.

    What HarmonyOS 7 actually changes

    The headline change is the HarmonyOS Intelligent Agent Framework 2.0, which restructures the OS around what Huawei calls an “intent-as-service” model, compressing what previously required multiple app navigation into a single natural-language command.

    At the centre of this is Xiaoyi, Huawei’s AI assistant, rebuilt from a conventional voice tool into what the company describes as a system-level intelligence agent. Xiaoyi now controls over 2,100 system-level capabilities and coordinates with more than 2,000 third-party AI agents developed across Huawei’s developer ecosystem. 

    Richard Yu, chairman of Huawei’s Consumer Business Group, framed the release as a generational inflexion point: “In 2019, HarmonyOS was born. In 2023, native HarmonyOS apps began. In 2026, HarmonyOS enters the Agent era.”

    Underneath sits openPangu 2.0, Huawei’s updated foundation model, with 505 billion parameters in its Pro version and 92 billion in the Flash variant, both supporting 512K context windows. On-device models at 30 billion parameters are due on Kirin chips by autumn 2026. HarmonyOS 7 also delivers a 15%-plus performance improvement over HarmonyOS 6.1, according to Huawei’s own benchmarks. 

    The task execution rate claimed is above 90%, though that figure is Huawei’s own and has not been independently verified.

    The market position is consolidating

    The numbers shared at HDC 2026 reflect a shift that has already happened. In Q1 2026, HarmonyOS held 19% of China’s smartphone OS market against Apple iOS at 16%, with Android at 65%. HarmonyOS first overtook iOS in China in Q2 2025, according to Counterpoint Research.

    That trajectory matters more than any single feature because China is simultaneously the market Apple cannot currently operate in at the AI level and the one Huawei has fully optimised for. The agent network Xiaoyi coordinates includes partnerships with Ctrip for travel planning and Ant Medical for health data analysis, services woven into the Chinese consumer stack that Apple’s architecture does not reach.

    Where the limits are

    The scope of the challenge to Apple needs calibrating. HarmonyOS 7 is currently in developer beta, with the stable consumer release expected this autumn. The 2,000-plus AI agents are anchored in the Chinese app ecosystem. 

    The platform counts more than 400,000 applications and services, which is significant but still a fraction of what Apple’s App Store carries. Huawei’s ambitions to take HarmonyOS international remain aspirational for now.

    There is also a design note that softens any clean divergence narrative: HarmonyOS 7 adopts the same Liquid Glass aesthetic Apple introduced with iOS 26, and Samsung brought to One UI 9. Visual language converges even as underlying architectures and regulatory environments pull in opposite directions.

    The longer arc

    HarmonyOS exists because of US sanctions. When Huawei lost access to Google’s Android in 2019, it built its own OS from necessity. By January 2026, over 90% of Huawei devices were running the fully homegrown version. That forced independence is now a structural advantage in the one market where Apple cannot currently deploy its headline AI feature.

    Sanctions built the platform. Regulatory friction cleared its path.

    See also: Siri AI arrives with Google inside, and much of the world is locked out

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  • Siri AI arrives with Google inside, and much of the world is locked out

    “We’ve all had that moment where you search for something you know is there, but it just won’t show up.” Apple’s Stacey Ford, vice president of OS Program Management, was talking about Spotlight at WWDC 2026, but she could have been describing the company’s AI ambitions. 

    On Monday at Apple Park, the thing that wouldn’t show up finally did: Siri AI, the assistant rebuilt from scratch after years of underdelivery. The new Siri sustains genuine multi-turn conversation, draws on what’s in a user’s mail, messages and photo library, fields live queries from the web, and carries out tasks across applications.

    Apple is giving the assistant its own dedicated app alongside system-wide integration, with iPhones showing Siri activity in the Dynamic Island as requests run. That is the version Apple presented on stage. The version worth examining sits in the footnotes: who is actually powering Siri AI, and who gets to use it. 

    Google under the hood

    Apple’s most consequential disclosure was a quiet one. The company said it collaborated with Google and the Gemini family of models to develop the next generation of Apple Foundation Models that power its Apple Intelligence experiences, the architecture on which Siri AI runs. After two years of insisting its in-house models would close the gap, Apple has answered the question of how it caught up: it didn’t, alone. 

    The company spent considerable keynote time pre-empting the obvious objection. “We believe privacy in AI is non-negotiable,” senior vice president Craig Federighi said, adding that “data is only used to execute your request, and outside experts can continue to verify this promise at any time.”

    The privacy architecture may well hold. The strategic picture is harder to soften. Apple now depends on its largest search rival for the intelligence layer of its own assistant; at the same time, Google is shipping Gemini across Android, Workspace and its own hardware. Whatever the terms of the arrangement, Apple has conceded that the frontier model race is one it could not win on its own timeline, and that admission carries weight far beyond Cupertino. 

    If the world’s most valuable hardware company, with its silicon advantage and effectively unlimited budget, chose to license rather than build, the sovereign AI ambitions being drafted in capitals around the world deserve a more honest read of what “building our own model” actually costs.

    The Siri AI rollout map tells its own story

    Then there is the question of who gets Siri AI at all. The initial beta, due later this year, supports English only. China is off the map entirely, with Apple citing unresolved regulatory requirements, and EU users won’t see the assistant on iPhone or iPad at launch. Apple has said a path forward is being worked on; in the meantime, its updated press release confirms EU availability is limited to macOS 27 and visionOS 27 at first.

    Read that map from Asia, and the gaps are glaring. China, Apple’s most contested market, is excluded outright, while domestic assistants from Chinese vendors ship without restriction. An English-only beta leaves Mandarin, Japanese, Korean, Bahasa and Hindi speakers, which is to say most iPhone users in the world’s fastest-growing smartphone markets, on the old Siri for an unspecified period. 

    Apple gave no timeline for additional languages. The company that built its reputation on shipping the same product to everyone, everywhere, on the same day, has shipped its most important software in years to English speakers only, minus China entirely and minus iPhone users in the EU.”

    Catching up, by Apple’s own staging

    The keynote’s structure was telling. TechCrunch noted that Apple opened by repairing what was broken before showing off what was new, and positioned the upgraded Siri as one entry on a lengthy list rather than the headline act.

    It was also a transition moment. This was Tim Cook’s final WWDC as CEO before John Ternus, Apple’s senior vice president of hardware engineering, takes over on September 1. “I truly believe the best is still ahead at Apple,” Cook said in his closing remarks. 

    Perhaps. Siri AI is a real product at last, and the demos suggest Apple’s integration instincts remain intact. But Ternus inherits an assistant that thinks with Google’s models and a rollout plan that asks most of the planet to wait. The catching up, it turns out, has only just started.

    (Photo by Apple)

    See also: Apple plans big Siri update with help from Google AI

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    Want to learn more about AI and big data from industry leaders? Check out AI & Big Data Expo taking place in Amsterdam, California, and London. The comprehensive event is part of TechEx and is co-located with other leading technology events, click here for more information.

    AI News is powered by TechForge Media. Explore other upcoming enterprise technology events and webinars here.

    The post Siri AI arrives with Google inside, and much of the world is locked out appeared first on AI News.