Apple's new, smarter Siri AI is finally here

Apple's Siri used to be the bleeding edge of what smart assistants can do, back in 2011 when Apple originally integrated it into the iPhone. That was a long time ago, and things have changed.

Once ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude launched and showed the world what a truly smart chatbot can do, Siri felt very basic in comparison. Apple promised an overhaul back in 2024, and it still hadn't happened prior to today, despite constant promises that the company is working hard to improve its smart assistant.

Ahead of WWDC 2026, a bevy of reports and rumors gave us an outline of what we can expect from the new Siri, including a standalone app, a redesign, a Google Gemini-based AI brain (with options to invoke other third-party chatbots), all with a focus on privacy.

Now, during the opening WWDC 2026 keynote, Apple officially introduced the new Siri. So what has changed?

Well, Apple did team up with Google to build new versions of what it calls "Apple Foundation Models," which is the company's lingo for AIs that are good at different things, including speech recognition, image, and video generation.

The most important thing this new architecture "unlocks" is the new Siri. It's telling that Apple literally talked about privacy before it even started showing us any new Siri features, ensuring the users that their data is never stored by Apple.

Privacy is great, but what can the new Siri actually do? Mike Rockwell, VP of Siri engineering, revealed a new name for the AI-infused Siri: It's called Siri AI (slow clap).

Yes, it includes a dedicated Siri app, a more conversational Siri, with a brand new design. If you ask Siri something, it will pop out of the iPhone's Dynamic Island with an answer, and the answer might include a Reminder, or a song, or a map (with driving directions to a destination) web search result.

In Apple's ecosystem, Siri is everywhere, and the same goes for Siri AI. In one example Apple provided, the macOS version of Siri is asked for help on building a shed. It returns a nicely laid out selection of helpful advice, while drawing from personal context present on the computer.

Siri AI will work on iOS, macOS, iPadOS, and watchOS, and even visionOS, and you'll also be able to start on one device, such as the iPhone, and finish the work on a different device, like a MacBook.

The visual representation of Siri on visionOS is one cool highlight: Siri appears as a translucent ball, and you can ask her things just by looking at her avatar and uttering a question.

It looks nice, neat and tidy in Apple's examples, but it'll take some actual usage to know whether this new Siri is up to par with other smart assistants of today.

Siri AI will initially be available in English, but it will "quickly" expand to more languages, Apple said.

For more WWDC 2026 news, follow our live blog to see all of the latest announcements and surprises from the annual Apple event.