Apple’s top software executive wants you to know that the new Siri won’t try to be your friend. Craig Federighi, the company’s senior vice president of software engineering, laid out a design philosophy for Apple’s AI assistant that sounds almost radical in 2025: just do what the user asks, then stop talking.
In a podcast interview with Mostly Human following WWDC 2026, Federighi took direct aim at the engagement-first model powering chatbots from OpenAI, Google, and others. His argument is that those systems are built to keep you talking, and Apple thinks that’s a problem worth solving by not replicating it.
The anti-sycophancy thesis
Federighi didn’t mince words about the competition’s approach to AI interaction.
“As you may know, if you use many of the existing chatbots, they’re really focused on engagement to a large degree. And sycophancy, right? They kind of want to pull you in. They might encourage you to reveal things about yourself, and then use that as a basis to establish a connection.”
