By integrating Google’s 1.2-trillion-parameter Gemini model into the core of its revamped Apple Intelligence architecture, Apple is promising the deep, intuitive virtual assistant it first teased two years ago.
The New Look: From Rainbow Ring to Liquid Glass
The first thing users will notice about Siri AI is its dramatic visual overhaul. The familiar glowing rainbow ring at the bottom of the screen is gone. Instead, Siri AI springs to life directly from the Dynamic Island, shifting into a fluid, "Liquid Glass" animation that expands across the top of the interface.
For users who prefer typing over talking, Apple introduced a new Search or Ask panel. Triggered by a downward swipe from the top center of the screen, this text-first AI interface allows users to type natural language commands, launch shortcuts, or route complex queries directly to integrated chatbots. Furthermore, Apple is introducing a standalone Siri app for iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple Watch, featuring a persistent chat-thread layout, full iCloud synchronization, and the ability to upload documents or photos for deep analysis.
Key Features: Context, Action, and Multi-Step Logic
Siri AI is no longer just a voice remote for basic tasks; it has been transformed into a proactive system agent capable of understanding your personal context, reading your screen, and executing complex workflows across multiple applications.
1. True Personal Context & Cross-App Actions
Siri AI can parse information from your notes, calendar, contacts, photos, and past emails to piece together answers and act on your behalf. During the keynote, Apple demonstrated a user asking about an upcoming concert. In a single, fluid interaction, Siri AI found the ticket information in a text thread, checked the user's calendar for availability, created a reminder to enter a ticket lottery, and started playing the artist's music.
2. Screen Awareness & Photo Integration
Because the assistant can now "see" what is on your display, its contextual helpfulness has skyrocketed. In another on-stage demo, Siri identified a coastal landmark from a photo a user was looking at, cross-referenced past messages to find a friend’s address near that location, and immediately mapped out driving directions. Users can also ask Siri to dig through their photo libraries using natural language commands—such as "Find photos from my last family trip"—and instruct the assistant to add those specific images to a shared family album entirely in the background.
3. Multi-Step Chained Commands
In a massive quality-of-life upgrade, Siri AI finally supports chained, multi-step instructions. Instead of issuing three separate prompts, a user can say: "Check the weather for Thursday, look at my calendar to see if I'm free for lunch, and text Sarah that I'll be there." Siri AI will process the entire sequence in one go.
4. Visual Intelligence in the Camera App
Siri is being integrated directly into the iPhone's Camera app via a dedicated mode. By pointing the camera at physical objects, locations, or documents, users can access instant "Visual Intelligence."
Nutritional Insights: Scanning a food item or meal label instantly pulls nutritional data and logs it directly into meal-tracking software.
Smart Actions: Pointing the camera at a restaurant bill allows Siri to calculate the tip and offer an immediate option to split the payment among friends using Apple Cash.
Apple Vision Pro Integration: Spatial computing users can utilize this same visual intelligence simply by looking at physical objects in their environment.
Writing Tools and System-Wide Dictation
Apple is also weaving its heavy-duty Writing Tools directly into the Siri AI ecosystem. Users can prompt Siri to draft emails, compose messages, or generate documents from scratch using natural language. The AI is sophisticated enough to adapt its tone and writing style based on exactly who you are communicating with.
To ensure everything reads perfectly, Apple is introducing a system-wide, automated grammar-checking tool that proofreads text in real-time across all apps without requiring manual activation. This coincides with a major upgrade to system-wide dictation, drastically improving punctuation, capitalization, and spelling accuracy.
The Privacy Asterisk and the Gemini Backbone
For a company that has spent years marketing strict on-device processing as its primary differentiator, anchoring Siri AI to Google's cloud servers is a massive shift. Apple Software Chief Craig Federighi tackled the privacy question head-on during the keynote:
"Today, many AI providers talk about privacy, but by default, most of them retain your personal interactions, leaving the onus on you to defend your privacy. At Apple, we believe privacy in AI is non-negotiable."
Apple emphasized that while the heavy lifting is handled by Google's cloud technology, the infrastructure has been heavily customized to adhere to Apple's strict privacy guardrails. By default, the system retains no personal interaction data, ensuring that your context remains entirely yours. Additionally, within the new Ask panel, power users will have the flexibility to manually toggle between Google Gemini, ChatGPT, and Anthropic's Claude depending on their preference.
Availability and Rollout
Siri AI will launch in beta later this year alongside iOS 27, iPadOS 27, and macOS 27.
To start, the assistant will exclusively support English, with additional language rollouts planned for later dates. Notably, due to ongoing regulatory and compliance hurdles, Apple confirmed that Siri AI will not be available in the European Union or China at launch.
