Siri 20 may not be experienced until next year, whatever the rumors about the rollout of the upgraded voice assistant However, a new patent suggests that Apple is working on the ability to use Siri during video calls in the FaceTime app

The new patent, discovered by The Mac Observer, appears to specifically relate to using Siri during video calls in real time The patent is titled "Interaction with a Digital Assistant in a Video Communication Session Environment"

Currently, one can ask Siri to initiate a FaceTime call, but the assistant's role ends there Making Siri available during a call could allow users to access new information without interrupting the call or having to search through their phones while continuing the conversation Examples provided in the patent include asking Siri for the weather while continuing a FaceTime call

According to some drawings provided by Apple in the patent, Siri appears to be a third "individual" in the call; it is not entirely clear whether Siri will be in the chat the entire time or only appear when called upon

Throughout the patent, Apple mentions "natural language input"; with Apple Intelligence coming later this year, it certainly feels like an extension of Apple's attempts at AI in its devices

From the patent: "One example is receiving speech input on one device during a video communication session between at least two devices, and generating and sending a textual representation of the speech input to a server, and one or more additional textual representations of the speech input generated by another device and receiving a shared transcription from the server that includes both the textual representation and determining and presenting one or more candidate tasks based on the shared transcription"

The patent is dated July 9, but the company filed it last August 9; Siri 20 is scheduled to complete its rollout in 2025, so it is not certain when we will see this potential new feature Still, the patent offers an interesting look at the potential future of Siri and what may be coming for Apple's virtual assistant