Apple announced that many AI-powered features will be coming to the Siri virtual assistant with iOS 18, such as an updated design, improvements in speaking and understanding spoken language commands, and integration with OpenAI's ChatGPT model.
Some of these features, announced during Apple's WWDC event on June 10, follow the lead of Apple Intelligence, the company's new privacy-focused personal intelligence system that says it can control actions in apps on behalf of users. Apple noted that on the Siri side, these actions include things like pulling information from user emails to check the plane landing time, or finding a driver's license image on the device and extracting that information to fill out a form for you.
Apple says Siri's updated design makes it more prominent across the device and displays a bright multi-colored border on the screen when in use. Siri will also be able to better understand users whose words are stuck in their mind while talking to the assistant and maintain the context of the conversation between requests.
Users will also be able to make a request by simply defining an application or feature they want to use. Siri has the ability to understand and retrieve relevant information. Additionally, users will soon be able to type their questions and requests into Siri by double-tapping at the bottom of the screen and continue these actions by typing or using voice commands.
The company says Apple Intelligence gives Siri “screen awareness” to take action and understand what's on your screen, allowing it to do things like update the address on the contact card when that person passes you new information. Siri's ability to perform “hundreds” of in-app actions will allow it to perform complex tasks entirely through voice commands, such as fetching images of friends in certain locations or outfits and enhancing those images when asked to “make them stand out.”
Siri will benefit from the power of ChatGPT on platforms other than iOS 18
For the upcoming ChatGPT integration, Apple says Siri can “leverage ChatGPT's expertise where it might be useful to you,” for example when asking for recipe recommendations. Siri will ask users if they can use ChatGPT to complete a request and present this information directly on the device's screen if user consent is given.