After years of promises, Apple has finally shown what it envisions a modern voice assistant to be. At the WWDC developer conference in Cupertino, it unveiled Siri AI, a completely rebuilt assistant powered by artificial intelligence. The new feature will arrive this fall with iOS 27 and other operating systems. But there is a catch. Users in the European Union, including those in the Czech Republic, will not yet be able to access it on the iPhone.
What can Siri AI actually do?
Forget the assistant that could do little more than set an alarm and direct you to the web when faced with a more complex question. The new Siri behaves more like ChatGPT or Gemini. It can hold a continuous conversation, maintain context, remember what you have discussed, and pick up where you left off. Apple has also given it a standalone app in which conversation history is synchronized through iCloud across the iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, and Vision Pro headset. This means you can start a conversation on your computer and finish it in the car.
The biggest change is what Apple calls personal context. Siri AI can access your messages, emails, photos, and notes and extract exactly what you need from them. Want to find a restaurant a friend recommended in a message a month ago? Or a hotel reservation number buried in an old email? Just ask. The assistant also understands what is currently on your screen. If you receive a message about having dinner with friends, you can immediately ask Siri what to bring and have the recipe saved to Notes.
Software engineering chief Craig Federighi says Siri AI is designed to help find information and get things done throughout the day, working across apps more naturally than ever before. Under the hood, it runs on a new generation of Apple Foundation Models. Some processing takes place directly on the device, while more demanding tasks are handled by Private Cloud Compute servers, where Apple says no personal data is stored. According to The Guardian, Google and its Gemini model are also helping Apple rebuild the assistant.
The camera as Siri's eyes
Siri can now look at the world around you as well. Visual Intelligence has received its own mode in the Camera app, where all you need to do is point your phone at anything in front of you and press the shutter button. The assistant will tell you what you are looking at, estimate the calories in a plate of food, or split a photographed receipt among friends using Apple Cash. That last feature, however, will remain available only in the US.
Image recognition is also coming to the iPad and Mac for the first time. On the tablet, it is part of the screenshot tools, while on the computer you activate it with a keyboard shortcut, select part of the display, and ask Siri about it directly. On Vision Pro, you simply look at an object and start speaking.
Apple is also adding improved writing tools. Siri can write an email from scratch, edit a draft according to your instructions, and automatically check for typos across the system, including in most third-party apps. One interesting detail is that when writing messages, it can imitate the tone you usually use when communicating with a particular person. Do you send your boss concise bullet points? That is exactly the kind of draft it will prepare for you.
AI is spreading elsewhere too. Safari can intelligently organize open tabs, while the Notify Me feature monitors selected websites for changes. Photos has received improved removal of distracting objects and two new generative features: Reframe for changing the aspect ratio and Extend for generating additional image background. Apple will limit the number of such edits per day, however, with higher limits available to iCloud+ subscribers.
When and where? The Czech Republic is out of luck for now
And now for the bad news. The developer beta is already available, a public test version will arrive in July, and the final release will follow in the fall. However, Siri AI is launching only in English, and Czech and Slovak are not yet included on the list of languages supported by Apple Intelligence.
EU rules present an even greater obstacle. Apple has confirmed that Siri AI will not be available on iPhones, iPads, and Apple Watches in the EU at least this year. The only exceptions are the Mac and Vision Pro, where the assistant will work in a supported language. The company says it is looking for a way to bring the new features to Europe without compromising user privacy. The European Commission, however, sees things differently. According to Reuters, it said the day after the conference that Apple had simply failed to make its AI tool comply with European regulations. China will also be left out, as Apple is still working to meet local regulatory requirements there.
The restrictions also apply to the hardware itself. Siri AI will run on the iPhone 15 Pro and newer models, iPads and Macs with an M1 chip or later, and Apple Watch Series 9 and later. However, the most advanced features, such as more expressive voices and more accurate dictation, will require the latest hardware, such as the iPhone 17 Pro, iPhone Air, or a Mac with an M3 chip and at least 12 GB of memory.
Investors are watching to see whether AI can save Siri
The conference also had symbolic significance. It was Tim Cook's final major appearance before handing over the reins to John Ternus this fall after fifteen years at the helm of the company. And the pressure to succeed is enormous. In May, Apple paid $250 million to settle a class-action lawsuit over misleading advertising of Siri's capabilities, with some iPhone owners receiving compensation of up to $95.
Before the conference began, Reuters wrote that investors primarily wanted to know whether artificial intelligence could save Siri. Following the presentation, Morgan Stanley analysts warned that the rollout of the new assistant would be slowed by the aging devices still in users' hands, which will not support Siri AI.
