Things to know about AI Siri in iOS 27

Siri in iOS 27 gets its biggest upgrade yet, with conversational AI, Visual Intelligence, in-app actions, a dedicated app, and deeper integration into the Apple ecosystem.

These are the new features you can use when iOS 27 arrives on your device, if you’re using an iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max, or newer models (including iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone Duo, of course). Only these latest phone models have the built-in hardware needed to meet higher AI processing requirements.

Notable new features of AI Siri in iOS 27

A new platform: Apple Intelligence combined with Google Gemini

The story of Siri AI begins with a partnership. Apple has announced a partnership with Google to leverage Gemini series models to support the operation of the next generation of Platform Models from Apple. They are optimized to operate both on-device and through Apple’s Private Cloud Compute infrastructure, providing high levels of multimodal (text, image, and voice) understanding, reasoning, and processing.

On devices powered by Apple’s latest chips, a more powerful on-device model improves speech production, increases dictation accuracy, and enhances natural language understanding, while ensuring data is stored on-device whenever possible.

Siri is now truly capable of dialogue

The biggest improvement in iOS 27 is Siri’s ability to maintain natural, multi-turn conversations. Unlike previous versions, which often treated each request as a separate interaction, Siri can now maintain context throughout the entire conversation.

For example, you can ask Siri about the World Cup schedule, then ask additional questions about planning a soccer viewing party, creating a menu, and sending invitations without repeating the original topic. Siri understands context and continues the conversation naturally.

On iPhone, users can swipe down from Dynamic Island to start a text conversation with Siri at any time.

Siri now has its own app

For the first time, Siri has a dedicated application.

This app stores chat history and syncs data between iPhone, iPad, and Mac via iCloud. Thanks to that, users can return to previous conversations instead of having to start from the beginning each time.

Siri on Mac is integrated into Spotlight

On macOS Golden Gate, Siri’s artificial intelligence (AI) is deeply integrated into Spotlight.

When you type a question into Spotlight, the search box turns into a full Siri conversation window; This window can be resized and moved across the screen like any other application.

Users can also hold down the key Control and click on files, images, or text to ask Siri to summarize content, compare documents, explain information, or answer questions related to the selected item.

This feature brings a new level of context-based support right into macOS.

Personal context and app actions (App Actions)

Finding information on personal applications becomes much easier. Siri can now work across supported apps like Photos, Messages, Mail, and Notes to gather information and make requests.

This virtual assistant can also perform tasks across applications through the App Actions feature.

For example, Siri can:

• Draft emails
• Edit and share photos
• Create reminders
• Add events to the calendar
• Complete multi-step workflows
• Third-party apps that adopt App Intents will also be able to integrate these capabilities.

Visual Intelligence: Siri can now “see”.

Visual Intelligence gives Siri the ability to understand visual content and interact with what’s displayed on your screen.

On iPhone

Visual Intelligence is integrated directly into the Camera app as a dedicated Siri experience.

Users can point the camera at objects, signs, dishes, documents or products and ask questions about them. Siri can identify these items, provide information, and perform related tasks.

Apple has given examples such as analyzing restaurant bills to split payments and identifying dishes to provide nutritional information.

On Mac

Visual Intelligence works with the content displayed on the screen.

Users can select text, images, files, or documents and ask Siri to summarize, compare, explain, or answer questions about the selected content without switching apps.

On visionOS

In visionOS, Siri can incorporate what you’re looking at into the conversation.

Users can ask questions about objects, products, signs, and other visual elements in their surroundings, allowing Siri to combine visual understanding with verbal requests.

Apple says Private Cloud Compute is used when additional processing is needed, helping to protect user privacy while enabling advanced AI features.