Apple is rolling out its biggest overhaul of Siri ever to more users with the release of iOS 27 public beta, giving the public a chance to try out the new AI assistant ahead of its wider release later this fall.
This public beta marks the first time Apple has made AI-powered Siri widely available to non-developers. With around 2.5 billion active devices worldwide, even if only a fraction of users install the public beta, it will still be the biggest test of Apple’s redesigned AI assistant and its answer to ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and more.
Officially announced at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference in June, the Siri AI update transforms Apple’s aging voice assistant into a more capable AI-powered tool that can access information on a user’s device, such as emails, photos, and messages, as well as respond to what’s on the screen and provide answers based on the world’s knowledge, similar to modern AI chatbots.
It is also more deeply integrated into the overall operating system. As before, you can access it by saying “Hey Siri” or pressing the side button. It can also be accessed by swiping down from the Dynamic Island (black bar at the top of the screen). It’s also integrated with Spotlight, iPhone’s built-in search engine tool, making it more powerful than ever before, allowing you to find answers to almost any question.
For the first time, Siri also has its own standalone app. This is the user experience preferred by people who are already familiar with chatbots like ChatGPT and Gemini. However, Siri is so deeply integrated throughout the iPhone that accessing it through an app seems somewhat unnecessary.
In addition to iOS 27 on iPhone, the upgraded Siri is available on all other Apple products, including iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, CarPlay, AirPods, Apple TV, and Vision Pro.
Under the hood, Siri AI leverages Apple Intelligence, including Apple’s new Foundation model, which runs on-device and uses private cloud computing. Apple worked with Google to build the Foundation and Gemini models, but these models are more than just rebranded versions of Gemini. Instead, Apple’s model was built specifically for Apple Silicon using proprietary data to extract Google’s Gemini. This is the process of using Gemini to create small, efficient models built into iOS and other Apple software. Private Cloud Compute, on the other hand, ensures that your personal data is not stored or accessed by Apple.
In early testing of the developer version of Siri AI, the assistant is now better able to handle basic tasks on your phone, such as finding specific photos in your photo library, summarizing group texts, adding events sent via text to your calendar, and finding nutritional information about what’s visible in your camera view. They were also great at answering questions that you would normally have to search the web to answer, like when upcoming local events are happening or what’s happening in the news.
In the developer beta, Siri could sometimes display error messages or become confusing. (For example, I once asked Siri for the latest news about Iran, and Siri searched my contacts for someone with that name.)
However, it’s easy to see Siri becoming a bigger part of your daily digital life, especially since you don’t need to open an app to use it.
Overall, this year’s developer betas have been pretty stable, which makes it easier to recommend the public betas this time around. Of course, you should always approach beta installations with caution. If you want your device to run completely smoothly and error-free, we recommend holding off until the general availability of iOS 27, scheduled for September.
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