At its annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), Apple announced a new generation of products featuring a redesigned Siri, which will arrive with iOS 27, macOS 27 Golden Gate, watchOS 27, and visionOS 27. The software will be smarter and better at understanding context. Here’s how it will work. The new version of Siri is called Siri AI and it has been completely rebuilt with generative artificial intelligence at its centre. This major update comes after years of user frustration and delays.
To catch up with its competitors, Apple has entered into a collaboration with Google, using the technology from the Gemini model family to power its new system layer. The new digital assistant shifts away from strict question-and-answer interactions to more natural, multi-turn conversations. It includes a highly customisable voice engine, allowing users to adjust its pace, accent, and expressiveness.
A key feature of the update is onscreen awareness. Siri AI can understand exactly what a user is looking at and carry out tasks across Apple’s app ecosystem.
Additionally, the technology introduces a dedicated Siri app, which serves as a chatbot that privately syncs users’ conversation histories via iCloud on the iPhone, Mac, and Apple Vision Pro. The assistant can create emails from scratch, automatically check text for errors across the system, and adjust its tone based on how a user typically talks to different contacts.
Visual intelligence is also well integrated. A new Siri mode in the iPhone’s Camera app lets users scan physical objects for real-time data, such as getting nutritional information from food, adding events to a calendar from a poster, or calculating how to split a restaurant bill using Apple Cash. On the Mac, the assistant works with Spotlight and right-click menus, while Apple Vision Pro users can simply activate it by looking at a floating, three-dimensional orb.
Staying true to its emphasis on privacy, Apple highlighted that requests are processed on-device or through its Private Cloud Compute network, ensuring user data is not stored or available to outsiders, including Apple itself.
Siri also offers integrated Writing Tools that are more powerful than ever, allowing users to write with Siri AI virtually anywhere they type. Users can describe what they need and Siri can generate a draft from scratch to get the ball rolling. If a user wants to refine what they’ve written, they can describe the change they want to make and Siri can quickly update it.
Developer testing begins immediately, with a public beta planned for later this year; however, availability will initially be limited to English. Due to local regulations, including the European Union’s Digital Markets Act, Siri AI will not launch in China or on iOS and iPadOS devices within the EU at first.
Mathures Paul
