The new Siri is finally here. At Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference on Monday, the company lifted the lid on an Apple Intelligence update that unlocks new Siri experiences across its various platforms.
Apple’s revamped voice assistant will now be known as Siri AI. It will come with its own app, a new design, Visual Intelligence and a bunch of new customization options when it comes to voice selection. Initially it will be available only in English, but additional languages are set to be added later.
The Siri AI app is a memory bank for all your past requests and conversations.
“Siri is still a very capable assistant that helps you find what you need and do more,” said Mike Rockwell, the former CEO of Vision Pro, but more recently led the company’s effort to bring Siri to usher in the AI era. “It’s also highly interactive, so you can go back and forth like never before, and get detailed, engaging answers,” he added.
This Siri update actually takes two of Apple’s. The company first announced Siri 2.0 back in 2024 and the launch of Apple Intelligence. But this new version of the voice assistant, complete with AI, has been delayed after delay. Just last month, Apple agreed to pay $250 million to settle multiple lawsuits alleging it misled people about the iPhone’s capabilities.
It’s no surprise that an improved Siri finally arrived during Tim Cook’s last WWDC as Apple CEO. Unveiling the original Siri back in 2011 was one of the first things Cook did when he stepped into the top role. It makes sense that he would like the long-promised improvements to Siri to see the light of day before his departure, and close his reign by closing what could have been an unfinished chapter.
“Apple had to address its shortcomings in AI, and WWDC provided the answers,” said Ben Wood, senior analyst at CCS Insight. “The company now has to prove that its privacy-led, integration-first approach can translate into better everyday experiences, not just to match competitors.”
What can Siri AI do?
Siri AI will be available on all Apple devices and services.
Siri AI is available on all Apple devices and services, from iOS, to CarPlay, to AirPods. You can activate it just like you do now — by saying “Hey Siri” — and by pressing the button on the side of your device, dragging your finger down the dynamic island of your iPhone or with Spotlight on your Mac or iPad. The experience, Apple promises, will be richer and deeper, with better conversational skills.
Siri will not only understand your personal context, but will be able to complete app actions for you, while recognizing what is displayed on your screen thanks to Apple’s Visual Intelligence. Meanwhile, a dedicated app will work across all different platforms, acting as a memory keeper for any previous conversations you’ve had with Siri and making it easy to return to them.
In a demo during the WWDC keynote, Rockwell showed how it’s possible to ask Siri about upcoming concerts, including finding a way to secure tickets and set reminders, all using voice. He also showed how it was possible to ask Siri to point to a location in a photo and see if his friend, who had sent him his new address, lives nearby, without having to manually receive the message and search for it.
Apple has finally introduced its improved voice assistant.
Siri AI can also do things completely for you. It can identify your friends and family members in photos by name, and it can create an album containing certain characters determined by you, where it will collect all the photos that bring them together. It can access your messages, emails and other applications at your request to reveal novel information that would otherwise take time to find.
Additional features include more accurate pronunciation, which will allow you to more confidently send messages using only your voice, or ask for Siri’s response or discuss creative ideas. It also has what Apple calls “global knowledge,” which means it can get you detailed information on any topic, or in-depth answers to any questions you might have.
This is very much the Siri that Apple first hinted at two years ago, but this time it’s fully realized. But the real test — whether it meets the expectations of people who dream of a real digital assistant — is yet to come.
“Apple still needs to prove that Siri and its extensive AI capabilities can move from promise to everyday use,” said Paolo Pescatore, an analyst at PP Foresight. “The challenge is not just to show technological progress, but to make AI feel invisible in the background and relevant in important moments.”
This story is in progress, please check back for more.