Turning off Siri on a Mac should mean Siri is off. But some macOS 27 users are finding that isn't necessarily what Activity Monitor shows.
The issue picked up attention in a Hacker News thread posted this week. One Mac user described disabling Siri in System Settings, blocking it through Screen Time and shutting down every Siri- and Apple Intelligence-related service they could find with a third-party macOS debloating script.
After restarting the Mac, however, a process called Siri was still running in Activity Monitor. Double-clicking it showed that the process belonged to Siri AI.app, which the poster said is read-only and can't be deleted.
Another commenter checked their own Mac and confirmed the behavior. They said System Settings showed Siri as disabled and offered to turn it back on while the process kept running, and they noticed that its label switches between Siri and Siri AI depending on whether macOS thinks the assistant is enabled, even though it's the same executable either way. A similar report surfaced on Reddit where a user said the Siri AI process was still running after they disabled Siri AI in Settings.
Tom's Guide has reached out to Apple for clarification on why Siri-related processes may continue to appear after Siri has been disabled and what those processes are doing. We'll update this story if we hear back.
The Siri process appears to be running Spotlight
The most likely explanation came from the same Hacker News thread. One commenter pointed out that in macOS 27 the process responsible for the Spotlight search interface is now the one called Siri, when it previously carried the Spotlight name. Another tested that theory by force-quitting the Siri process from Terminal and watched the Spotlight interface in the menu bar flicker as it relaunched.
That fits how Apple built Siri AI on the Mac, where the assistant is integrated directly into Spotlight and typing a question into the search field turns it into a Siri conversation window. If a single app now handles both Spotlight and Siri, macOS would need to keep it running for search to work at all, whether or not you've switched the assistant off.
Apple hasn't explained why the Siri-branded process remains active after the assistant is disabled, or what role this plays in macOS 27. That leaves users staring at an oddly named process with very little information about what it's actually doing.
Apple's own controls say Siri is off
Apple's support page for Siri Restrictions in Screen Time is explicit about what the setting does. Under System Settings > Screen Time > Content & Privacy Restrictions > Siri, the Allowed Siri Version option lets you pick Siri AI (Beta), Siri Classic or Don't Allow Siri, and Apple describes the last choice as the way to turn off Siri. The same screen includes a Capabilities section where you can allow or block individual features such as Broad World Knowledge and Writing Assistance.
What the page doesn't address is whether choosing Don't Allow Siri should also stop every Siri-named process on the system, and that gap is where most of the confusion is coming from.
Siri now reaches much deeper into macOS
The issue is more noticeable now because Siri AI, which Apple began rolling out with macOS 27 on September 14, does far more than the assistant you used to summon with a voice command. Apple built it around personal context, onscreen awareness and the ability to take actions across apps. On the Mac it also lives inside Spotlight and adds an Ask Siri option to right-click menus, which requires much deeper integration with the operating system than the Siri most people spent years ignoring.
Users are already running into the side effects. In one Reddit discussion, a user said Siri-related options kept appearing in places like writing tools after they turned Siri off, and they ended up using Screen Time to block the remaining features.
Other commenters pointed out that Apple Intelligence powers writing, translation and image tools separately from Siri, so switching off the assistant doesn't necessarily switch those off too. Ars Technica has also reported that macOS 27 drops the single toggle that previously turned off Apple Intelligence and deleted its downloaded models.
Be careful with Terminal fixes
Workarounds circulating online can cause problems of their own. A Terminal command that hides the Ask Siri item from right-click menus has been shared on the MacRumors forums and Reddit, and it works by editing a system setting that controls which items appear in the Apple menu.
The command is meant for people who want to keep Siri AI without the menu clutter, since Ask Siri only shows up when Siri AI is enabled. Users on the same Reddit post, say they tried it, but that it interfered with Spotlight and they had to reverse the change.
A separate Reddit post claims that Apple Support supplied Terminal commands for removing Apple Intelligence entirely, and a Hacker News commenter noted that the approach involves disabling System Integrity Protection, a core macOS security feature.
Given what's been reported so far, I'd leave debloating scripts and Terminal tweaks alone, especially now that Siri and Spotlight appear to share the same process.
How to turn off Siri in macOS 27...kind of
To switch off the assistant, open System Settings, click Siri and select Turn Off Siri. For a restriction that stays in place, go to System Settings > Screen Time > Content & Privacy Restrictions > Siri, set Allowed Siri Version to Don't Allow Siri and click Done.
If you want a basic assistant without the AI features, choose Siri Classic in the same menu. The Capabilities section on that screen lets you block individual features like Writing Assistance and Image Creation, and Apple's separate guide to turning off Apple Intelligence features covers the rest.
Based on the reports so far, doing all of that will still leave a Siri process in Activity Monitor, and Apple doesn't currently offer a supported way to remove it. The real shortcoming is that macOS 27 doesn't explain what turning Siri off actually covers, and until Apple does, it's not thoroughly shut off.
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