For the last 15 years, talking to Siri, Apple’s virtual assistant on iPhones, felt profoundly uncool. Though it performed a few basic tasks, like adding calendar appointments and setting timers, Siri was so subpar that asking it for help was often counterproductive.
So when Apple announced in June that a “profoundly more capable” Siri powered by Google’s artificial intelligence would arrive this year, I wondered: Will we finally see people talking to Siri on the train, on the streets, in the office?
That’s an important question because mainstream adoption of the new version of the Apple assistant, Siri AI, could be a litmus test for A.I.’s effect on consumer technology in the coming years.
The people most bullish about A.I., including tech executives like Sam Altman of OpenAI and Satya Nadella of Microsoft, believe it will become more important than operating systems and apps. They envision a future where people talk to A.I. assistants to control their devices. In theory, the company with the most popular “agent” (techie speak for assistant) could win the A.I. race that drives the future of computing.
A more moderate view — the approach Apple is taking with Siri AI — is that chatbots could simply be another tool in an operating system, like many other features and apps, that people can use or ignore.
To get to know the new Siri, I installed an early version of Apple’s next operating system, iOS 27, which includes Siri AI, on my iPhone and prodded the Apple assistant with requests for about six weeks.
My early impressions were that Siri AI is a big improvement from the old-school Apple assistant (frankly, that’s a low bar), but it hasn’t fundamentally changed the way I use the iPhone. I still mostly scroll through apps and only occasionally feel the need to ask Siri for help. Siri AI does, however, have some neat tricks that lots of people will enjoy for speeding up tedious tasks, like editing photos, creating grocery lists and updating address books.
Here’s what you need to know about what has changed, and a set of prompts to try when Siri AI becomes widely available this year.
Meet the new Siri AI
You can chat with Siri AI in a various ways, some new and some old:
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You can open a new Siri app and type or dictate prompts, similar to other chatbots like ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude.
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You can summon the assistant by holding down the button on the right side of the phone or by saying, “Hey, Siri,” followed by a question or request, just as in the past.
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You can swipe down from the middle of the top of the screen to open a box that lets you type a search query or a question for Siri.
What to Expect
Apple customers, including owners of iPhones, iPads, Macs and the Apple Watch, can test the new Siri on their devices by installing public betas — early, unfinished versions of the operating systems — and then joining a waiting list for Siri AI access. However, because these are early days, Siri AI is occasionally glitchy. (For one, the assistant failed to translate a Chinese restaurant menu into English.) To avoid bugs, I recommend waiting for the operating systems to fully release this fall before trying out the assistant.
During my testing, however, I noticed a clear sign that Siri was on a brighter path. What drove me batty with the past version of Siri was that whenever I asked it to add “Go to gym” to my calendar, the assistant would consistently add “Go to Jim” as a calendar appointment, no matter how many times I corrected it.
When I made that request with Siri AI this week, the assistant responded: “Sorry, did you say go to gym or go to Jim?”
“The former,” I replied. The assistant made the appropriate entry to my calendar. Not perfect, but better.
