Siri AI is the flagship feature of iOS 27, but you can’t use it right away.
After months of testing, Apple’s iOS 27 and other updates are now available to the general public. On iPhone and iPad, the latest updates bring a litany of performance improvements, such as faster app launch and AirDrop transfers, but the headline feature is undeniably the new Siri AI.
Siri AI is a complete overhaul of Apple’s virtual assistant capable of entering a conversation, similar to modern chatbots like ChatGPT and Gemini. In fact, the new Siri shares many of Gemini’s underpinnings, with Apple partnering with Google to create its own semi-custom AI models. Apple has gone further to integrate Siri into the operating system, giving it access to your emails, messages, and other content on the device.
With Siri AI getting such a drastic overhaul, you can expect it to be available as soon as you update to iOS 27. However, that’s not the case: you have to manually enable the feature and join a waiting list for now. Here’s how to do it and why Apple has stuck the long-awaited Siri redesign behind a waiting list.
How to Enable Siri AI and Join the Waitlist on iOS 27
Siri AI requires iOS 27 or iPadOS 27, so your first task is to check for pending software updates to make sure you’re using the latest version. Open it Settings application and navigate to General > Software update to check, then install if necessary.
Once done, return to Settings and press Siri > Try Siri AI (beta). If you don’t see the option, try changing your language to English (United States) in the same Siri menu if you haven’t already. Make sure you have UNITED STATES selected under Settings > General > Language & Region > RegionAlso. Support for French, Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese, and Korean is expected to arrive in October 2026.
Even though iOS 27 is available on iPhone models up to the iPhone 11 series, not all of them support the new Siri AI. Much like the general Apple Intelligence threshold, devices older than the iPhone 15 Pro series (including non-Pro iPhone 15 models) do not benefit from the new Siri AI. For Siri AI on your iPad, you’ll need either the seventh generation iPad mini (A17 Pro) or an iPad with an M1 processor or later.
You will not be able to join the Siri AI waitlist if your Apple account region is set to China or a country in the European Union. The European Commission has asked Apple to give competing AI companies equal access to the same underlying system data including Siri AI, citing the EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA). However, the iPhone maker pushed back, arguing that opening access to third parties could pose a threat to users’ privacy. Apple says its Private Cloud Compute system used for Siri AI is specifically designed to prevent eavesdropping and data collection.
While the iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 16 and newer series support Apple Intelligence and Siri AI, you’ll need the iPhone 17 Pro or newer to get the most advanced features. Specifically, Apple has limited Siri’s expressive voice and advanced dictation features to these newer models because they require more powerful hardware.
Why does Siri AI have a waitlist?
Several aspects of Siri AI rely on advanced models. The digital assistant can now access personal context from your device’s apps, read on-screen content, and pull information from the web. Some Siri AI tasks are handled by the device’s built-in neural engine, but more complex tasks rely on the processing power of powerful servers in the cloud.
Millions of iPhone users upgrading to iOS 27 and simultaneously enabling Siri AI could strain Apple’s cloud infrastructure before it has a chance to grow. Limiting access via a waitlist allows the company to balance demand against available computing load and avoid slowdowns for those who already have access. If the new Siri was enabled by default for everyone, resources would be wasted on people who don’t care about the upgrade anyway.
As for how long you’ll have to wait, there’s some good news. Some people reported having access to Siri AI within a day of being put on the waitlist, while others had to wait longer. Your iPhone or iPad may also say “Optimizing for Search and Siri” while you wait, meaning it’s creating the personal contextual database that Siri AI can draw on later. This process runs in the background when your device is charging and works most efficiently when your phone is locked and connected to Wi-Fi.
During the iPhone 18 Pro keynote, Apple said it would offer expanded AI usage limits with paid iCloud+ plans in the future, although it did not provide further details. For now, the company says it expects daily usage limits based on server load, request complexity and other factors.
