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Alongside today's software updates, Apple has published a proper rundown of Siri AI, the completely rebuilt Siri it promised at WWDC in June. It's rolling out from today as a beta, in English first, on iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch and Vision Pro, and it's the part of iOS 27 I've had the most questions about. So here's what it can actually do, how it treats your personal information, which of your devices will get it, and the small print I think you should know about before you rely on it.
What it can do
The big change is that Siri now understands your own stuff. Apple's example is asking about something a family member suggested, and Siri finding the message where they mentioned it, pulling the recipe from an old email, and adding the ingredients to Reminders. It can also see what's on your screen and act on it, so while you're looking at a website you can ask it to add the dates it finds to your Calendar, and it can answer questions about almost anything using information from the web, whether that's the football scores or where to get a coffee.
It works inside apps, too. Apple says you can carry on texting a friend in WhatsApp or playing a book on Audible through Siri, and that drafting an email in Microsoft Outlook, searching for a homework assignment in Notability and adding a booking to Tripsy are coming soon. And it's a conversation rather than a one-off command, so you can ask follow-up questions and it keeps the thread.
Getting to it has changed as well. On iPhone you can still say "Hey Siri", but you can also press the side button or swipe down from the Dynamic Island to start a conversation. On iPad and Mac, Siri AI lives inside Spotlight, and you can Control-click on an image, a file or some text to ask about it.
The Siri app
There's now a dedicated Siri app that keeps all of your conversations in one place, syncing them privately through iCloud, so you can ask something on your iPhone and pick it up later on your Mac or iPad. You can pin the useful ones. One thing to note for families: Siri AI isn't available to anyone under 13.
Writing, dictation and voices
Siri can now write a draft from a plain description, give you feedback on something you've written, and in Mail and Messages it matches the way you usually write to each person, including your punctuation and tone. Apple Intelligence also proofreads as you type across the system, including in most third-party apps, which I suspect is the feature a lot of you will quietly appreciate most.
Dictation has been improved so it captures what you say as polished text, and you can customise how expressive Siri's voice is and how quickly it speaks. Those two, along with a few of the more demanding features, run on what Apple calls its most advanced on-device model, AFM Core Advanced, and I'll come back to which devices get that in a moment because it's not all of them.
Visual Intelligence everywhere
On iPhone there's a Siri mode inside the Camera app, so you can point the phone at a poster and ask about it. On iPad it's built into screenshots, and on the Mac there's a keyboard shortcut to select part of your screen and type a question about it. Vision Pro gets it too, by looking at something and asking.
The Google part, and privacy
This is the detail that has been rumoured for months, and Apple has now said it plainly. The new capabilities are "powered by the next generation of Apple Foundation Models, custom-built in collaboration with Google and its Gemini models". So Google's technology is part of the foundation, but it's Apple's models, running either on your device or on Apple's Private Cloud Compute servers.
On privacy, Apple's wording is worth quoting because it's specific. When a request goes to Private Cloud Compute, your personal data is "not stored nor made accessible to Apple or anyone else", and independent experts can verify that promise at any time. The index of your own information that Siri searches stays on your device. If you've been holding back from AI features because of where your data goes, this is the most reassuring version of the answer I've seen from anyone, and it's the reason I'd trust Siri AI with my inbox before I'd trust most of the alternatives.
Who gets it
Siri AI needs an Apple Intelligence device, which means an iPhone 15 Pro or 15 Pro Max, or any iPhone 16 or later; an iPad mini with the A17 Pro chip or any iPad with an M1 chip or later; a MacBook Neo or any Mac with an M1 chip or later; a Vision Pro; or an Apple Watch Series 9, SE 3 or Ultra 2 or later when it's near one of those iPhones. An iPhone 14 gets iOS 27 but not Siri AI.
The expressive voices and the improved dictation are a step further, because they need AFM Core Advanced, and that only runs on the iPhone Duo, iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max, iPhone Air, iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max, iPads with an M4 chip or later and at least 12GB of memory, Macs with an M3 chip or later and at least 12GB of memory, and the M5 Vision Pro. So a 16 Pro gets Siri AI but not the new voices. It's a little confusing, and I'd rather tell you now than have you wonder why a feature is missing.
The small print
Three things from Apple's own footnotes. First, it's a beta, in English to start, with French, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese and Spanish arriving next month, so expect the odd wrong answer and don't rely on it for anything that matters yet. Second, Siri AI isn't initially available in the EU on iPhone, iPad or Apple Watch. The UK isn't in the EU, so we're fine, but anyone with a device set to an EU region may find it missing. Third, features that rely on Apple's servers, including Siri AI, photo editing and Image Playground, have daily usage limits, and Apple says expanded access "will be available for a fee in the future". Nobody is being charged today, but it tells you where this is heading.
What I'd do
Update, then start with the ordinary questions you'd have asked the old Siri and see how differently it answers. Try asking it to find something in your email or photos, because that's where the personal context shows off. Have a look in Settings under Apple Intelligence and Siri so you know what's switched on. And treat it as a beta, which is exactly what Apple is calling it. I'll write more once it's had a few weeks in the wild and I've heard how it's behaving for you.
If you'd like a hand setting it up, or you're not sure whether your device qualifies, send me a booking request and we'll go through it together.
