Apple's next big challenge: Making Siri smarter

[...] as other tech giants jockey to build intelligent "chat bots" and voice-controlled home systems capable of more challenging artificial-intelligence feats, Siri at times no longer seems cutting edge.

Apple, Google, Facebook and others are racing to create digital services that consumers will find indispensable for shopping, chatting, controlling other appliances and simply getting through their daily lives.

[...] while Siri has gained new abilities over the years, some experts believe Apple still lags in the AI race, hindered in part by its unwillingness to pry too deeply into your personal information.

Monberg argues that Google's proactive digital assistant provides more useful reminders, recommendations and tips on local weather or traffic, largely because it reads his email and other data from his Android phone and crunches it with sophisticated algorithms on Google's powerful servers.

[...] many analysts believe the future lies in plans by Facebook, Google and Microsoft to incorporate intelligent "bots" into the voice- and text-messaging services that people use to chat with their friends.

[...] Jan Dawson, a tech analyst at Jackdaw Research, notes that Siri can volunteer helpful reminders from the Apple calendar, offer suggestions based on a user's location, or search for images stored in Apple's photo app.

[...] some experts say Apple is at a disadvantage with Google, which has compiled vast quantities of data — about individual users and consumer trends — from its search engine, Gmail, maps and other popular online services.