Apple has rebuilt Siri from the ground up and calls it Siri AI. The announcement came at WWDC26, and Apple describes it as an entirely new version of the assistant, powered by Apple Intelligence. The point is to move past one-off command parsing toward something that holds a conversation, keeps track of context and acts on what you have on screen.
It ships on iOS 27, iPadOS 27, macOS 27 and visionOS 27. watchOS 27 gets it in a later beta. This is a swap of the engine underneath, not a coat of paint on the old Siri.
What actually changes
Siri AI handles more natural language and keeps the thread of a conversation going, so you can chain requests without restating context every time. It adds onscreen awareness and personal context search, which means it can pull from your mail, messages and files to answer. It also reaches the web when it needs current information.
There’s a dedicated Siri app that stores conversation history and syncs it across devices through iCloud. Visual Intelligence extends to iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple Vision Pro, and a Siri mode shows up inside the Camera app. Writing Tools are integrated for drafting and editing, dictation improves in accuracy, and you can adjust the expressiveness and pace of the voice. Siri also reaches into Spotlight and context menus.
Underneath, a system orchestrator queries the Spotlight index and the App Toolbox without leaving the device. That’s what lets it know what you have installed and what each app can do, so it can chain actions together.
Privacy
Apple sticks to its usual setup. Much of the processing runs on device with Apple Foundation Models. When a request needs more power, it goes to Private Cloud Compute, where Apple states the data is not stored. The orchestrator that reads Spotlight and the App Toolbox runs entirely locally.
Who it’s for and what hardware it needs
This lands with people already inside Apple’s world who use several of its devices at once, since synced history and onscreen awareness pay off more when you jump from iPhone to Mac. If you come from Linux and watch this with some curiosity, the contrast is plain: here the assistant is welded to the system and tied to the hardware Apple chooses to support.
That’s the catch. Siri AI requires iPhone 16 or later, the iPhone 15 Pro models, iPad mini with A17 Pro, Macs with M1 or later, Apple Vision Pro, and Apple Watch Series 9 or later. If your device is older, updating to iOS 27 or macOS 27 won’t bring this part along.
When
Developer testing starts now through the Apple Developer Program. The user beta arrives “later this year” and begins in English, with more languages to follow. To track macOS releases, see the macOS page. For context on the latest point updates, we covered Apple’s April 2026 updates earlier.
Source
Apple Newsroom — Apple introduces Siri AI, a profoundly more capable and personal assistant