Tech Report: Delays, outages, and AI competition shake up Silicon Valley

Apple’s long-awaited Siri revamp won’t arrive until at least spring 2026, according to The Verge.

(LILAMAX)- Apple’s long-awaited Siri revamp won’t arrive until at least spring 2026, according to The Verge. Originally scheduled for a fall 2025 release alongside the iPhone 16 lineup, the upgraded voice assistant will now launch with iOS 26.4. Apple says the new Siri will integrate more deeply with users’ personal data and on-screen activities, aiming to deliver smarter, more contextual answers. The delay marks a setback as Apple faces criticism for falling behind in the AI race.

Google Cloud experienced a significant outage Thursday, disrupting operations for several major tech companies. Affected services included Shopify and OpenAI’s ChatGPT. The incident comes as Google intensifies its competition with Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure. The company’s engineering team is still investigating the issue, which has raised concerns about reliability amid the high-stakes cloud services race.

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) says it’s ready to take on Nvidia in the AI chip market. At an event in San Jose, CEO Lisa Su introduced the MI350 chip, claiming it’s 35 times faster than its predecessor and more affordable than comparable Nvidia chips. The move signals AMD’s aggressive push into the booming AI hardware sector as demand for high-performance chips continues to soar.

Amazon’s return-to-office policy is drawing fire from employees with disabilities. According to Bloomberg, workers have filed complaints with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the National Labor Relations Board, alleging the company has mishandled accommodation requests. At the center of the controversy is an AI-powered chatbot Amazon uses to process those requests—critics say it’s impersonal and ineffective. A petition on Change.org is now calling for reforms to Amazon’s workplace policies.