Apple's rebuilt Siri finally works — but the moment has passed

After rounds of delays, Siri AI arrived in the consumer beta build of iOS 27, launched in July. The assistant now does what Apple promised: it understands personal context, taps into broad world knowledge to answer questions, and surfaces relevant information stored on the iPhone. Yet the arrival feels somewhat anticlimactic — Apple finally has a functional, even impressive, AI assistant, but it has arrived well past the point where such a launch feels novel, with AI tools now coding software, AI agents completing multistep tasks, and AI working alongside users on computers.

Siri AI now supports natural, back-and-forth conversation, with settings to tweak the expressivity and pacing of voice responses. Users can also type to the assistant or use it via a dedicated app for the first time, referencing past conversations. It can understand personal context to help find photos, emails, contacts, texts, or calendar appointments even when the user isn’t sure what they’re looking for or where it’s stored — for instance, pulling up the last saved receipt without specifying what it was for. It can also reference information saved only as a photo, like a driver’s license number or a screenshotted QR code, and can launch websites and use apps to get directions, play music, edit a photo, draft an email, or play audiobooks. Siri now consistently and accurately plays the requested song, podcast, or audiobook — a low bar, but one it previously stumbled on.

Siri can also brainstorm, helping refine ideas, learn about a topic, or suggest a recipe from ingredients on hand, and can answer location-based questions like when a favorite band is playing. It can be used in the camera’s viewfinder to learn about real-world objects or help split a restaurant bill.

These improvements came from Apple’s partnership with Google for its Gemini AI models: Apple used Google’s technology to train and refine its own proprietary Apple Foundation Models, designed to run on Apple’s own silicon and private cloud compute infrastructure. Still, despite finally delivering a functional Siri, the launch feels like Apple fixed a long-standing bug rather than delivered something revolutionary — this is how Siri was meant to work all along. The general public, who don’t run beta builds, will get the new Siri when Apple officially releases iOS 27, expected in September.

Why it matters

Apple has closed a years-long capability gap with its AI rivals, but the launch’s muted reception shows how far the competitive bar for “functional AI assistant” has already moved.