Only these iPhone models will benefit from the new Siri AI this fall

Siri has never been the smartest virtual assistant, but what’s particularly disappointing is how it has refused to evolve despite Apple’s aggressive push for Apple Intelligence. Two major versions of iOS have disappeared without the supercharged Siri Apple originally promised. Apple finally announced an improved version of Siri during its WWDC 2026 keynote, and it looks like the virtual assistant is finally living up to the expectations the company set years ago. We used Siri AI and found it really useful for answering complex queries and executing chained commands.

Only devices compatible with Apple Intelligence will receive Siri AI later this year. This includes every iPhone released since the iPhone 15 Pro, as well as iPad and Mac models powered by Apple silicon. The iPad mini 2024 is also supported since it uses the same SoC as the iPhone 15 Pro. Launch the Settings app, scroll down a bit and if you spot the Apple Intelligence and Siri section, your iPhone is about to receive the AI-powered Siri upgrade when the stable version of iOS 27 rolls out this fall.

Interestingly enough, Apple says the new Assistant will initially be released in beta. Users will likely have to sign up manually to access Siri AI, just like those testing the iOS 27 developer beta had to sign up for a waitlist. Fortunately, compatibility with iOS 27 shouldn’t be a cause for concern, given how Apple is extending support up to the iPhone 11.

Siri is now better equipped to handle personal requests: it understands context and can reference information from your notes, messages, emails, and photos. It’s powered by newer Apple Foundation models that are stored on the device, which should improve both response times and privacy. More complex prompts are transferred to the larger models stored in the cloud via Private Cloud Compute, which Apple says ensures your data is inaccessible to anyone other than you.

If you have an iPhone 17 Pro, 17 Pro Max or an iPhone Air, Siri AI will be able to benefit from an even more powerful integrated model. This should improve the overall experience, but more importantly, it enables expressive voices for Siri, improved speech recognition, and more accurate dictation.

The upcoming iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone Fold are also rumored to benefit from powerful in-device AI models, but it’s unclear whether the base model, the iPhone 18, will as well. Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo reported that Apple is looking to increase the memory of non-Pro iPhones to 9GB. However, Apple mentions that its most powerful integrated AI models require at least 12GB of RAM.

We have to admit that much of the Apple Intelligence suite so far has been sloppy AI features that don’t significantly improve the iPhone experience. Siri AI seems to be really useful though. Even on the beta versions we tried, the virtual assistant was fast and accurate.