Siri AI is coming to iPhone, iPad, and Mac users this fall with iOS 27, iPadOS 27, and macOS Golden Gate. After years of promises that a new Siri was in the works, or that the current generation would finally get the job done, Apple is finally delivering what users wanted from the personal assistant and, to be honest, even a little more. Over the past month, I’ve been testing the new Siri, as it would mine my personal information, help me with on-screen tasks, and even create new shortcuts for me; With the public beta now available, you can also take advantage of the new Siri, if you want to test the new software before anyone else.
While all of these features were long promised during the WWDC 2024 keynote, the company finally figured out how to make these new features work using proprietary Google Gemini models combined with Foundation models and Apple’s private cloud computing. To be honest, I expected Apple to take even longer to get things right, but the current state of Siri is already impressive.
Some of the details I like most about the assistant are that it doesn’t flirt with me, it answers questions without offering follow-up messages, and it’s literally available everywhere. All you have to do is call on Him and He is ready to help you, whatever your needs. Here’s what you need to try.
Use of personal information
In 2024, Apple’s main claim was that Siri would be able to access personal information. For example, you can ask the personal assistant to get a link to “this podcast that friend X sent you a few weeks ago.” While the company can’t offer this with iOS 18 or iOS 26, it does with iOS 27. Siri helped me find messages (via iMessage and Mail), navigate reminders, and even tap links I’d completely forgotten about.
Even though the big problem is that you have to use Apple’s apps, like iMessage, Mail, Notes, Safari, and Photos, it’s definitely worth being part of the company’s ecosystem. Siri can also be useful in helping you find gift ideas for a loved one, copy your personal information into a document, and much more.
This is especially useful when navigating operating systems, as Siri now works the same on iPhone, iPad, or Mac. It can look at PDFs on my desktop to help me answer a question on the iPhone, and it can also guide me to a message, photo, or email that I asked for but couldn’t find. Every time I use the new Siri AI, I wait for the personal assistant to give me wrong information or fail to complete the task, and I’m always surprised by accurate data about what I just asked.
Helping you with on-screen information
Another feature of Siri AI has helped me not only when using apps and browsing the web, but also with the functions of my devices. Siri finally has on-screen awareness, allowing it to read what’s on your screen and help you with a task. For example, I wanted to find a specific section on my Mac and I didn’t know how to access it. I asked what I should do and Siri quickly gave me the step-by-step solution. On top of that, if I have questions about how to get something to work on my iPhone, iPad, or Mac, or just ask why something isn’t working as expected, it leverages online information from Apple Support and other users on the Apple Community Forums and more to give me troubleshooting, possible solutions, and more.
Screen awareness can also help you read the room, such as “I didn’t understand what this person meant with this message” or “What should I really pay attention to in this article?” » and the personal assistant will understand the context and offer an appropriate interpretation.
What’s cool is that if you’re trying to make plans with your friends, you can ask Siri to help you plan the party, give you ideas on what to bring, and once the plans are set, it automatically suggests adding it to the calendar or reminders based on the messages you’ve sent via iMessage.
Visual intelligence
Of all the Apple Intelligence features released so far, Visual Intelligence is the one that Apple has had the most success with. However, from iOS 27 the company is moving to another level, since it will not only be the iPad, but also the Mac and Apple Vision Pro. With the iPad, I can now take a screenshot of something on my tablet and then use some of the already familiar features of Visual Intelligence, like adding information to my calendar, saving a company as a contact, or translating text.
On the Mac, Apple added a keyboard shortcut, which lets me select something on the screen and tap Siri to get a helpful response. This has been useful for getting more information about a photo, asking questions about an element on a web page, etc. Truth be told, what I like most about the new Siri AI on Mac is that whatever I select, there’s an “Ask Siri” button. And although at first I thought it might be a bad idea, it turned out to be very useful.
In addition to these changes, Apple is also making visual intelligence smarter on the iPhone. So if you take a photo of a festival, Siri can intelligently create multiple calendar events for you and you can select which ones you want to attend. For bills, Siri can also turn the receipt into an interactive list, so you can select what you ate, and the personal assistant can tell you how much you need to pay.
Proper writing tools
Another OG Apple Intelligence tool is being redesigned under the new Siri AI. With the new templates, Siri goes beyond just creating generic text. It can work by writing you something or, more impressively, it understands how you write and who you write for, and offers intelligent suggestions.
Although Apple says this could even apply to email messages, as it would write a message differently to your boss than to a co-worker, I have personally experienced this feature on iMessage. Depending on what type of message I get, I get such a specific response that I would just type that it’s just awesome.
For the past couple of years, my constant joke with my friends was to capture suggestions from Apple Intelligence whenever they appeared on my screen. Now for the first time I’m using them because it matches my slang, number of exclamation points, etc. In other situations, like improving an Italian message to be much more formal or simply adding my personal information to a message, it’s incredibly helpful, helpful, and quick. Yet what I like most about Siri AI is that it gets straight to the point, doesn’t try to talk to me before I ask, and doesn’t change what I’ve written in a way that seems artificial.
Creating shortcuts
Last but not least, something I appreciate and many other users will also appreciate now that the iOS 27 public beta is out, is that you don’t need to have any prior knowledge on how to create a shortcut to actually create them. Although I’ve always relied on my friends to create my custom shortcuts (yes, I know), I can now do them via Siri AI. On the Shortcuts app, I can say, in natural language, what I’d like a shortcut to do, and then Siri will intelligently create exactly what I wanted.
For example, if I ask something as specific as to tell me how hot my iPhone gets, it says it can’t give me the answer, but if I ask it to create a shortcut that, every time I use it, it will start playing all my downloaded Apple Music songs on shuffle, it does. Users can also request more complex tasks, but the real deal here is that you can tell the personal assistant what you want, and it will come back with a useful shortcut.
This is also useful for Safari, as users can also create extensions by asking Siri what they want to do in a page, or even keep Siri following a web page so that whenever an element changes (for example, a sold-out concert has new tickets available), you can simply go back and do what you wanted to do.
