Apple has rebuilt its voice assistant and given it a new name. At WWDC 2026, the company introduced Siri AI, a conversational version of Siri that runs on Apple Intelligence, holds back-and-forth conversations, and reaches across your apps to act on personal information. It is the payoff for the more capable Siri Apple first promised back in 2024, and it lands at Tim Cook’s final keynote as CEO before John Ternus takes over in September.
Quick answer: Siri AI is the new conversational Siri shown at WWDC 2026. It works on iPhone, iPad, and Mac, with companion experiences on watchOS and visionOS. It rolls out later this year, in English only at launch, and will not be available in the European Union for now.
What Siri AI actually does
The biggest change is how Siri handles a conversation. The old assistant took one command and forgot it the moment you finished speaking. Siri AI keeps the thread going. It remembers what you asked a moment ago, follows up on it, pulls in real-time world knowledge, and reads across your apps to give a fuller answer. Apple framed the update by admitting that “there are times when you expect more from Siri,” and described the result as “a profoundly more capable assistant.”
It also sounds different. A new voice engine makes Siri more expressive, and you can fine-tune how it sounds with micro-adjustable voice settings during initial setup. One thing stays the same. You still start a request by saying “Hey Siri.”
How you reach Siri AI
Siri now lives in the Dynamic Island. There are three ways to call it up, and they cover most situations without taking over your whole screen.
- Swipe down from the Dynamic Island.
- Press the side button.
- Say “Hey Siri.”
There is also a dedicated Siri app. It keeps a running list of your past conversations, lets you scroll back through them, and lets you start fresh ones. Conversation history syncs through iCloud, so a session you begin on one device carries over to another. The app is coming to watchOS too.
Siri AI across iPhone, Mac, and Vision Pro
Siri AI shows up differently depending on the device, but the core assistant is the same.
| Platform | How Siri AI works |
|---|---|
| iPhone and iPad | Dynamic Island access, side button, “Hey Siri,” and the dedicated app. |
| Mac | Built into Spotlight and available from the right-click context menu on any file or window. |
| watchOS | The dedicated Siri app comes to the watch. |
| visionOS | Siri AI gains a 3D visualization you can place anywhere in your space. |
The keynote demos
Apple’s on-stage demos leaned on chained, multi-step requests, the kind of task that used to break the old Siri. In one, a presenter asked about a Suki Waterhouse concert, learned that tickets needed a lottery entry, and asked Siri to set a reminder for when the lottery opened. Siri did it.
Another demo showed Siri pulling threads together from different apps. A presenter asked about a dessert he had heard about at an event, and Siri found the details in his Messages history, built a watch-party menu from them, drafted a message to his contacts with the menu attached, and offered send and edit buttons. In a separate sequence, Siri identified a landmark in a photo, opened navigation to it, surfaced shots from a recent family trip, and added a chosen image to a shared family album on request.
What powers Siri AI
Siri AI runs on the next generation of Apple Intelligence. Apple has partnered with Google to use Gemini models behind the new system, alongside features like image generation and editing, personal context understanding, and “app actions” that search through your apps to find what you need. This is Apple’s attempt to close the gap with rivals after its first AI rollout stumbled and several headline features slipped.
Siri AI is not the only AI addition. The Photos app gains generative editing tools, including a “clean up” option and an “extend” feature that fills in space beyond a photo’s original edges. You can also write with Siri almost anywhere you type, turning a short prompt into an email or an essay draft.
Availability and the limits at launch
Siri AI arrives later this year rather than the day of the keynote, and it comes with two clear restrictions. It launches in English only. And it will not be available in the European Union at release, which Apple attributes to regulatory issues. The company says it is working with lawmakers to change that.
For everyone else, the test is simple. Siri AI is meant to hold a real conversation, remember context, and finish multi-step jobs without you repeating yourself. If it does that as smoothly outside the demo room as it did on stage, it will be the most meaningful change to Siri since the assistant first shipped in 2011.