Short answers, pulled from the story.
Siri was co-founded by Dag Kittlaus, Tom Gruber, and Adam Cheyer as a spin-out from SRI International's Artificial Intelligence Center, built on research from the DARPA-funded CALO project. Apple acquired the company in April 2010 under the direction of Steve Jobs.
The original American voice of Siri was recorded by Susan Bennett in July 2005. Bennett was unaware her recordings would be used for a voice assistant. Apple has never officially acknowledged her role, but audio forensics expert Ed Primeau confirmed her claim after she revealed it in October 2013.
Siri was first released as a standalone app for iOS in February 2010. Apple then integrated it into the iPhone 4S, which launched on the 4th of October 2011, removing the standalone app from the App Store the same day.
In July 2019, former Apple contractor Thomas le Bonniec disclosed that Siri regularly recorded user conversations, often triggered unintentionally, and sent them to contractors for grading without disclosing this practice. Apple apologized in August 2019, halted the program, and introduced opt-out controls in iOS 13.2 in October 2019.
In December 2024, Apple agreed to a $95 million class-action settlement compensating users of Siri-enabled devices from the previous ten years. Apple was also required to confirm deletion of Siri recordings collected before 2019 and issue new guidance on data collection.
A 2017 Wall Street Journal investigation identified Apple's strict user privacy practices and internal executive power struggles as the primary causes. Apple discarded Siri search data after six months, while Google and Amazon retained data until users removed it, giving competitors more material to improve their systems.