Apple has made its biggest-ever Siri overhaul widely available to everyday users, releasing the iOS 27 public beta that includes the AI-powered assistant. The public beta marks the first time Apple has made Siri AI widely available beyond developers, giving iPhone owners early access to the new features before the software's official launch this fall. With the iOS 27 public beta, users can try out the revamped Siri assistant, which can access information on a user's device, including emails, photos, and messages, as well as respond to what's on the screen and ground its answers in world knowledge, similar to any modern-day AI chatbot.
The updated Siri AI is now available on all Apple devices, including iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, CarPlay, AirPods, Apple TV, and Vision Pro. Under the hood, Siri AI leverages Apple Intelligence, including Apple's new Foundation Models that run on the device and use its Private Cloud Compute. Apple built its Foundation Models in collaboration with Google and its Gemini model, but these models are not just some rebranded version of Gemini. Instead, Apple's models were built specifically for its Apple Silicon using proprietary data, and distilled Google's Gemini.
In early tests of the developer version of Siri AI, the assistant was able to better handle basic tasks on the phone, like finding certain photos in your Photo Library, summarizing group texts, and adding an appointment sent via text to your calendar. However, it's worth noting that the developer beta sometimes threw error messages or got confused. Despite this, it's easy to see Siri becoming a bigger part of your everyday digital life, especially because it doesn't require you to open an app to use it.