Imagine planning a quiet evening at home, only to receive multiple alerts about a dinner reservation you never made. That’s the reality many Apple users are experiencing, thanks to an overzealous AI-driven Siri feature.
By simply browsing a restaurant’s page on restaurant-reservation service OpenTable via Safari, users are finding their calendars populated with phantom bookings, complete with follow-up notifications and reminders.
What might seem like a quirky mishap is becoming a widespread frustration for iPhone, iPad, and Mac users. The issue underscores the unintended consequences of Siri’s proactive AI features.
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The Story Behind Siri’s Overreach
Siri’s proactive assistant capabilities were designed to make life easier. By integrating with apps like Safari, Mail, and Calendar, Siri suggests events based on user activity—hotel bookings, flight details, and dinner reservations are automatically flagged and logged. This convenience, however, has a flip side.
For users exploring restaurants on OpenTable, Siri doesn’t wait for an actual reservation. Instead, it interprets the page visit as confirmation, creating a calendar entry for a table that doesn’t exist.
These phantom entries often arrive unaccompanied by context, leaving users puzzled and even embarrassed when shared calendars reveal nonexistent plans.
User Nick Heer shared his experience with the issue on Mastodon, saying “I looked at OpenTable this morning and Siri hallucinated from that a reservation I did not make, and suggested I add it to my calendar — which I did not see because I use Fantastical — and then suggested I mute notifications. My phone is haunted.”
He also shared the following screenshot, showing the Siri Suggestion in his calendar for a bar visit quite early in the morning.
The problem doesn’t stop at the calendar entry. Siri’s proactive nature triggers a whole cascade of alerts: reminders to enable Do Not Disturb mode, departure time suggestions, and other nudges tied to the nonexistent event.
Another user commented on the post about a similar experience, stating “something similar happened to my girlfriend the other day – browsing OpenTable but hadn’t made any reservations yet, then mid-browsing got an apple calendar notification that her reservation at the restaurant she’d just viewed was coming up in a few mins. She’s not on any betas though.“
For households sharing devices, the confusion multiplies. If one family member visits OpenTable on a shared iPad, the resulting calendar entry can sync across all linked Apple accounts. This intrusion not only complicates shared digital spaces but also raises privacy concerns.
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A Deeper Look at the Tech Driving the Issue
At the heart of this mess is Siri’s proactive suggestion system, which uses AI to interpret user activity and propose helpful actions. The system integrates deeply with Apple’s ecosystem, scanning data from Apple and third-party apps to identify patterns and act preemptively.
While this feature works well in controlled scenarios—like adding confirmed flight itineraries—it struggles when faced with ambiguous signals, such as browsing a restaurant website.
OpenTable, a popular restaurant reservation platform, provides data that Siri misinterprets as confirmation. This interaction highlights the challenges of integrating third-party services into Apple’s ecosystem without robust safeguards against false positives.
Apple’s Efforts to Reinvent Siri
The issue comes at a time when Apple is doubling down on AI-powered improvements to Siri. A major update scheduled for iOS 18.4 in Spring 2025 aims to enhance Siri’s ability to interpret app data and screen content more accurately.
Apple is also pushing for tighter integration with third-party developers by expanding APIs, a move intended to reduce these kinds of errors.
Looking further ahead, Apple is developing a generative AI-based Siri expected in 2026. This future iteration promises a more context-aware assistant capable of nuanced interactions. However, the current glitches underscore the hurdles Apple faces as it transitions Siri into a more sophisticated AI-powered tool.
Implications for AI-Driven Systems
This incident serves as a cautionary tale about the risks of overreaching automation. While AI-powered assistants like Siri aim to simplify life, their success depends on balancing initiative with accuracy and user control. For Apple, resolving this glitch is not just about fixing bugs—it’s about restoring user trust in Siri’s capabilities.
For now, users must contend with a system that can misfire spectacularly, turning a simple restaurant browse into a phantom evening out. As Apple works to refine Siri, the company faces a delicate balancing act: advancing AI capabilities without alienating the very users it seeks to assist.
