AI-powered apps have had a rocky relationship with the App Store. That may be changing.
Apple is reportedly developing an approach that would give AI agents and coding assistants room to operate without compromising the security and privacy standards the company has long held to.
Apple has been blocking updates for apps that let regular people build software using plain English.
The problem is not that those apps are dangerous. It’s that the App Store’s rulebook was written before anyone imagined this kind of software would exist.
That’s the actual situation Apple finds itself in right now. The rules haven’t changed, but technology has moved so fast that today’s most innovative apps are breaking guidelines that were never designed for them.
Why Developers Are Getting Nervous About Siri
Apple is now reaching out to developers, asking them to wire their apps into a revamped version of Siri coming with iOS 27.
Booking flights or adding calendar events, the types of tasks users typically handle manually, sounds like a genuinely useful feature. Yet, some developers are pulling back.
Their hesitation isn’t due to technical hurdles but rather to a quiet omission in Apple’s policy: while Apple currently charges no fees, it has left the door open to collecting commissions down the road.
Meanwhile, Chinese tech giants Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent have reportedly been in talks with Apple about Siri integration for their markets.
But they run into the exact same issue: nobody wants to build their product into someone else’s platform only to get a bill later.
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Google Soon to Power Siri
Apple has partnered with Google to bring custom Gemini models into Siri’s backend. The company that once sued over maps is now sharing AI infrastructure with its longest-running rival in mobile.
And iOS 27 will apparently let users swap out ChatGPT for other models, such as Anthropic’s Claude, when using tools like Writing Tools or Image Playground.
OpenAI, for its part, is reportedly frustrated. ChatGPT’s current iOS integration can generate text and images, but it has no access to email or personal data, and according to people familiar with the situation, users are barely touching it.
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The Real Puzzle Apple Needs to Solve
Unlike traditional apps that sit waiting for user inputs, AI agents can take independent actions, chain decisions together, and even build small, functional tools on the fly.
This dynamic behavior puts them on a direct collision course with App Store rules, which strictly forbid apps from altering their core functionality after installation.
Apple knows it has to rethink this. What that looks like in practice, nobody outside Cupertino seems to know yet.
WWDC on June 8 is where we’ll likely get the first real picture of how Apple plans to let agentic software exist inside its ecosystem without abandoning the privacy and security story it has spent years selling.
