Apple may be on the verge of a significant improvement to Siri, giving the virtual assistant the ability to whisper or shout depending on circumstances.

Amazon clearly demonstrates the benefits of an adaptable virtual assistant in a commercial where a father is trying to impress his daughter with his knowledge of history. The father relies on Alexa’s ability to whisper information to him, which he then passes on to his daughter.

Despite being the first major virtual assistant on the market, Siri still lacks this ability, although it appears Apple is preparing to address that. According to a patent application, first noticed by AppleInsider, Siri will soon have the ability to change its volume based on background noise, room layout and the volume of the person speaking to it.

The decision component may select one or more speech synthesis parameters corresponding to the speech output mode. The decision component may also, or alternatively, select a playback volume. The one or more speech-synthesis parameters, when incorporated in a speech-synthesis model, can cause a speech mode of the synthesized speech to match the speech mode of the utterance.

In other cases, the one or more speech-synthesis parameters, when incorporated in a speech-synthesis model, can cause a speech mode of the synthesized speech to differ from the speech mode of the utterance. In some cases, the decision component may select a speech synthesis model from a plurality of speech synthesis models corresponding to the speech output mode.

This will be a welcome improvement to Siri, and hopefully help it close the gap with its newer rivals.