Apple is giving Siri an AI upgrade in iOS 18

Apple has announced several AI-powered features coming to its Siri virtual assistant, such as an updated design and improvements to how it speaks and understands spoken language commands. These features, announced during Apple’s WWDC event on June 10th, come courtesy of Apple Intelligence — the company’s new personal intelligence system which the company says will be able to control actions on users’ behalf in apps.

For Siri, Apple says these actions include things like retrieving information from user emails if asked to check when their mom’s flight is landing, or the ability to locate an image of a driver’s license on the device, and extract that information to fill out a form for you.

While Siri’s ability to respond to verbal commands or questions was impressive when it was introduced on the iPhone 4S in 2011, its lack of subsequent improvements has made it feel like a disappointing afterthought. Meanwhile, products like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini have since shown that AI tools and systems are capable of a whole lot more.