As revealed during the WWDC 24 keynote, Apple’s new AI system (dubbed Apple Intelligence) will be integrated into Siri via the upcoming iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS Sequoia updates that’s coming later this year. With this, the first-party voice assistant will be able to offer enhanced language-understanding capabilities, thus making it more natural, contextually relevant, and personal.
For starters, users can now type to the voice assistant and switch between text and voice, facilitating seamless communication. Siri will also sport a new design with an elegant glowing light around the screen edge when active, enhancing its visual appeal.
One notable update is Siri’s ability to provide device support wherever users go, answering thousands of questions on how to perform various tasks on iPhone, iPad, and Mac. These include from scheduling emails in the Mail app to switching from Light to Dark Mode.
Siri’s new onscreen awareness feature allows users to perform actions related to the information displayed on their screens, such as adding an address received in Messages to a contact card. Apple notes that this feature will continue to expand, enabling the voice assistant to understand and act on content across more apps, making it a powerful tool for seamless information management within various applications.
Siri can also execute hundreds of new actions within and across apps. It will be capable of finding specific content, such as book recommendations in Messages and Mail, or retrieve articles from a user’s Reading List. Moreover, it can conveniently send event photos to contacts or perform other complex tasks without requiring manual navigation through apps.
Additionally, the upcoming update would allow Siri to deliver personalised intelligence tailored to the user’s on-device information. Users can ask the voice assistant to play a podcast recommended by a friend, which it will locate and play the episode regardless of the recommendation’s source. It can also provide real-time information, like flight arrival times, by cross-referencing personal data with real-time updates.
Last but not least, Apple has revealed that Siri will incorporate OpenAI’s ChatGPT model as well (more specifically GPT-4o), enabling it to tap into the latter’s capabilities where it might be helpful, but only at the user’s permission. It’s also worth mentioning that Apple users can access ChatGPT for free without creating an account, while existing OpenAI subscribers can connect their accounts to access premium features.
(Source: Apple [Newsroom])
