Apple ships Siri AI in beta, on models it built with Google

Apple released iOS 27, iPadOS 27, macOS 27, watchOS 27, visionOS 27 and tvOS 27 today, and with them Siri AI — the rebuilt assistant it demonstrated in June. "Apple today released the next generation of Apple Intelligence, powering Siri AI, an entirely new version of Siri," the company's announcement reads.

What makes the release worth reading closely is how much Apple qualifies it in its own words. Siri AI ships as a beta. It speaks English and nothing else until next month. It is not available in the European Union, and it is not available in China. And the features that lean on Apple's servers are metered, with Apple stating for the first time that lifting those limits will eventually cost money.

What actually shipped

The assistant Apple describes rests on four capabilities. Personal context lets Siri search a user's own data — Apple's example is finding a message where someone mentioned wanting to bake a family recipe, then pulling the instructions out of an email. Onscreen awareness lets it act on what is currently displayed: from a sports team's website, Apple says, "a user can ask Siri to find all the upcoming home games and add them directly to their calendar." Broad world knowledge pulls from the web for things like scores and travel questions. And systemwide app actions let it drive apps directly, "such as drafting an email from scratch or editing and sharing a set of photos."

Third-party app control is narrower today than the announcement's framing suggests. Apple gives WhatsApp and Audible as things Siri AI can do now. Microsoft Outlook, Notability and Tripsy appear in the same paragraph under "soon" — drafting an Outlook email, searching a Notability homework assignment, adding a restaurant to Tripsy are described as coming, not present. Worth tracking the distinction before assuming an app is wired up.

The rest of the platform release is more conventional: visual editing in Photos including Spatial Reframing, Extend and Clean Up; Image Playground; Safari tab organisation; Call Context, which surfaces things like a confirmation code or reservation number during a call; and a set of child-safety changes including Ask to Browse, which requires a parent to approve a new website before a child opens it.

The models are Apple's, built with Google

The line most worth noting sits inside Apple's own press release: the new capabilities "are powered by the next generation of Apple Foundation Models, custom-built in collaboration with Google and its Gemini models for deeply integrated Apple Intelligence experiences."

The arrangement is not new — Apple and Google announced a multi-year, non-exclusive partnership on 12 January 2026, with Apple stating that Google's technology provided "the most capable foundation for Apple Foundation Models," after evaluating OpenAI's and Anthropic's alternatives. Reporting at the time put the figure at roughly $1 billion a year, which neither company confirmed. Treat that number as reporting, not fact.

What changed today is that it stopped being a deal and became a shipping product on one of the largest installed bases in consumer computing. Apple runs the models on device and on its own servers through Private Cloud Compute, and repeats the privacy claim that when Private Cloud Compute handles a request, "their personal data is not stored nor made accessible to Apple or anyone else." Apple does not publish model sizes or say where the on-device/server boundary falls for any given request — so the practical question of how often a Siri query leaves the phone remains unanswered by the release.

Who can actually run it

Apple Intelligence as a baseline requires an iPhone 16 or later, an iPhone 15 Pro or 15 Pro Max, an iPad mini with A17 Pro, an iPad with M1 or later, a MacBook Neo with A18 Pro, or a Mac with M1 or later.

A second, higher tier exists for what Apple calls the more advanced on-device features: iPhone Duo, iPhone 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max, an iPad with M4 or later carrying at least 12GB of unified memory, and a Mac with M3 or later with at least 12GB. Memory, not the neural engine generation, is the gate — which is a reasonable signal about how large the local models have become.

Two large markets are excluded

"Siri AI will not be available initially in the EU on iOS, iPadOS, and watchOS," Apple writes, adding that features which depend on Siri AI are also unavailable there. That is the outcome Apple pre-announced on 8 June, when it said EU regulators "did not accept any of Apple's proposed solutions to bring Siri AI to the EU while safely supporting other virtual assistants," and argued that the Digital Markets Act as applied would require giving "any AI system nearly unlimited access to a user's device." Craig Federighi's line then: "We're deeply disappointed that our EU users won't have Siri AI on iPhone or iPad when we share our new software releases later this year." Apple gave no timeline in June and gives none today.

China is excluded on different grounds — Siri AI and the other new Apple Intelligence features "will not be available in China while Apple works through regulatory requirements." Between them, the EU and China account for a large share of iPhone users who will install iOS 27 today and get none of the headline feature.

The metering line

Certain Apple Intelligence features that rely on server-side models are subject to daily usage limits. Expanded access to such features will be available for a fee in the future.

Apple has spent two years presenting Apple Intelligence as a property of the device rather than a subscription. This sentence is the first plain statement that part of it will be sold. Apple does not say what the daily limits are, which features they apply to, what the price will be, or when. But the direction is now stated rather than inferred, and it aligns Apple with how every other assistant at this capability level is funded.

What to watch

• October: French, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese and Spanish support for Siri AI. That is the first test of whether the English beta generalises or was tuned narrowly.
• How long the beta label stays on. Apple rarely ships a flagship assistant feature under it, and removing it is the real GA signal.
• Whether the Outlook, Notability and Tripsy integrations described as coming actually arrive, and on what schedule third-party app actions open up more broadly.
• Any disclosure of the daily server limits and the eventual price.
• Whether the EU position moves. Apple has stated a regulatory blocker, not a technical one, so the unlock is a negotiation rather than a release.

One smaller detail worth flagging for anyone interested in on-device privacy architecture: Apple says the S11 chip in Apple Watch Series 12 and Apple Watch Ultra 4 includes what it calls Secure Exclave, "a dedicated hardware-isolated compartment that processes audio in complete isolation from the rest of the system, then immediately deletes it." It is a narrow feature, but it is the kind of hardware-enforced boundary that is easier to audit than a policy promise.