iPhone’s Siri gets biggest upgrade at Apple WWDC 2026:Tech giant enhances iOS 27 Apple Intelligence

Apple’s annual event Worldwide Developers Conference 2026 has started at Apple Park. This time, several major announcements have been made regarding Siri, iOS 27, and Apple Intelligence. Most notably, Siri has been introduced in a new avatar as ‘Siri AI’, which is far more conversational and context-aware than before. Siri AI will be able to write emails and messages without switching apps and will also tell the nutritional value of food by looking at photos. This is Siri’s biggest upgrade since its debut on iPhone in 2011, through which the company is preparing to compete with rivals like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude. Read ahead to know what new updates Apple has made in iOS 27 at WWDC 2026. 1. Major Change in Siri: Now Available in New Standalone App with Google Gemini Apple has made its old Siri assistant much more advanced in this AI era. After the new update, Siri will now work with the help of Google Gemini model. The company claims that the new Siri will be more conversational, capable of understanding visual intelligence, and more powerful than before. Now Siri can be used not only with existing apps but also as a separate standalone app. 2. AI Privacy Focus: Data will only be used to fulfill requests Before rolling out AI features, Apple has clarified its stance on privacy. Apple’s Senior Vice President Craig Federighi said, “We believe that there can be no compromise with privacy in AI.” He assured that users’ data will only be used to fulfill their requests and external experts can verify this promise at any time. 3. Apple Intelligence: Phone will understand context of emails and messages during calls The company has included several new Apple Intelligence updates in its apps. The Safari browser will now get tab management and one-tap password update features. Additionally, a cross-app context awareness feature (understanding one app’s context in another) has been provided between apps. The Messages app will now get AI-powered reply suggestions, while the Phone app will be able to extract context from other apps like Mail and Messages during calls. Apple stated that for these features, they have prepared Apple Foundation Models with the help of Google’s Gemini models. 4. iOS 27: iPhone 11 and all subsequent models will get support Apple has claimed that this will be their biggest software update so far that will support the most devices. The company announced that iPhone 11 and all subsequent iPhone models will receive the iOS 27 update. This new update will significantly improve performance. According to Apple, new photos will now appear 70% faster, AirDrop transfer speed will increase by 80%, and CPU schedulers have been improved to enhance multitasking. 5. Parental Controls: ‘Ask to Browse’ will be default for children under 13 years Keeping in mind children’s screen time and safety, Apple has introduced new tools for parents. Now parents can decide who their child can call and which apps or websites they can access. On devices of children under 13 years of age, ‘Ask to Browse’ (website access limit) and ‘Ask to Buy’ feature for App Store or in-app purchases will be active by default. 6. AI Editing in Photo App: Reframe and Extend Tools Will Change the Look of Pictures To compete with photo editing apps, Apple has introduced new AI tools in the Photo app. The new special ‘Reframe’ feature will change the perspective (angle) of the photo with the help of AI as if the camera was placed somewhere else while taking the picture. Meanwhile, the ‘Extend’ tool will increase the aspect ratio of the image, allowing more things to be added to the scene. Additionally, the ‘Cleanup’ tool has also been upgraded, which will remove unwanted objects from the photo’s background in a more realistic way with the help of generative AI. 7. Changes in Liquid Glass Design and Image Playground For users who did not like last year’s Liquid Glass design, Apple has provided an option to make some changes to it (opt-in rollback). Now users can highlight its elements more or less. Along with this, a new layered approach of Liquid Glass has been shown inside apps. Meanwhile, the image generation app ‘Image Playground’ has been reintroduced with performance updates. It has been secured that images created from this app will not be used for AI training. 8. New Features: In-built AI Dictation in Keyboard and Natural Language in Shortcuts 9. Tim Cook: ‘I am confident that Apple’s best times are yet to come’ At the end of the keynote, CEO Tim Cook gave his final message while bidding farewell to the company. He said, “Over the past few years, you have helped people connect, learn, and experience in extraordinary ways. Seeing the amazing capabilities we’ve introduced today and those that are yet to come, I am fully confident that Apple’s best times are still ahead. Creating the world’s best products that improve people’s lives has always been our North Star. Carrying forward this mission with such a creative and caring team has been the greatest honoor of my life.”