Apple Inc’s much-anticipated Siri overhaul is set to become the centrepiece of its next iPhone, iPad and Mac software updates – and Bloomberg News is offering the first peek at what the new digital assistant will look like.
Illustrations created by Bloomberg show the revamped Siri interface, a new chatbot-style app and other major iOS 27 changes that the company plans to announce at its June 8 Worldwide Developers Conference. The images are based on information viewed by Bloomberg and people with knowledge of the company’s plans who asked not to be identified because the software isn’t yet public.
An Apple spokesperson declined to comment. The company often tests multiple designs of features internally, and the final version set to be introduced to the public in June could differ.
The launch is shaping up to be a pivotal moment for Apple’s artificial intelligence strategy as it races to catch up with rivals such as OpenAI, Alphabet Inc’s Google and Samsung Electronics Co. It’s been a long time coming. Apple first previewed some of the technology in 2024, only to suffer a series of delays that put it further behind competitors and hurt its reputation. The company has spent the past year rebuilding parts of the assistant while rethinking its broader approach to AI.
The Siri revamp, the biggest in the assistant’s nearly 15-year history, will be released to consumers as early as September. It will likely be Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook’s final major product launch before handing leadership to longtime hardware boss John Ternus. The success – or failure – of the new AI features will also help determine consumer reaction to this fall’s iPhone 18 Pro lineup and Apple’s first foldable iPhone.
The new Siri will include the delayed features announced in 2024, such as the ability to understand personal data and analyse on-screen content. But those capabilities are just one part of a broader wave of upgrades: a rebuilt model that uses Google Gemini technology, AI-powered web search and a completely redesigned interface. There’s also a dedicated Siri app designed to compete more directly with ChatGPT and other AI assistants.
Beyond Siri and AI, Apple’s next operating systems are meant to fix bugs and refine last year’s controversial Liquid Glass design changes, while adding new features such as a more customisable Camera app. The company also plans to offer the ability to create custom passes in the Wallet app, such as for sporting events or gym memberships.
Apple has redesigned Siri for modern iPhone hardware, making it live inside the Dynamic Island as an always-on agent that can help users get things done across the operating system and within apps. The system can draw on web data, personal information and what’s on a user’s screen to complete tasks.
There are two starting points for Siri. The classic approach – saying "Siri” or holding down the iPhone’s power button – is set to trigger a redesigned Siri animation in the Dynamic Island, the pill-shaped screen element that Apple introduced in 2022. That mode is best suited for voice-based queries and search.
The second method is entirely new: Apple plans to let users swipe down from the top centre of the iPhone anywhere in the system to launch a new Search or Ask interface. (The Notification Centre can now be opened by swiping down from the top left.) That opens a revamped Siri experience designed for getting things done or searching by typing, though using voice remains an option.
This menu also shows the same interface in the current iOS that displays Siri Suggestions. That includes eight frequently used apps, functions like recent web searches or features like recording a voice memo. There’s also a panel for showing the weather in the morning or evening.
From there, users can launch apps, start text messages, ask about the weather, add calendar appointments, search through notes, trigger shortcuts within apps, or search the web using Apple’s new AI-powered search system, which competes with tools like Perplexity. Results are displayed in a rich text card that pops out of the Dynamic Island. Users can swipe down further to open a chatbot-style conversation inside the Siri app.
Apple has also been testing ways to open up iOS 27 to third-party AI agents installed through the App Store. The company already has a partnership with OpenAI’s ChatGPT, and it has internally tested integrations for Siri and other AI features with Google’s Gemini and Anthropic PBC’s Claude. Users will be able to route queries directly to outside AI services from the Search or Ask interface. There’s a button that provides a drop-down menu of external agent choices.
The new Siri app itself looks and operates similarly to apps like Claude, Gemini and ChatGPT. The home screen includes a history of previous conversations so users can return to prior chats. This can be viewed either as a list or a collection of rectangles that summarise past chats. And the conversational interface offers a voice mode, text field, and attachment picker for uploading documents and photos for context and analysis.
When users ask for information, Siri presents rich text cards and results for topics such as people, places and news headlines. Similar cards also appear for weather forecasts and sports scores, as well as results pulled from a user’s own data, including notes, text messages, emails, contacts, calendar appointments and reminders.
Siri will be smarter, too. In the interface planned by Apple, you can ask it for times you are available for appointments before scheduling something and for overlapping events. You can also ask the assistant to write emails, notes or text messages using information from the web and device content. That could include asking for a note to be created about how to fix a car engine or an email including your calendar availability.
Apple is also integrating Siri into the Camera app as a dedicated mode alongside existing options like photo and video. The feature would replace today’s Visual Intelligence experience and let users take photos and have them analysed by a third-party AI agent or put into a Google reverse image search. Elevating the feature into the Camera app – rather than limiting it to the Camera Control button – could increase adoption and help acclimate users to visual AI ahead of future products like smart glasses and camera-equipped AirPods.
The Camera app is becoming more customisable as well, thanks to a new Add Widgets panel. The top row of shortcuts that currently appears across capture modes will be replaceable, allowing users to prioritise more professional controls, such as depth adjustments, or surface tools like timers and Night mode more prominently in the interface. The changes are aimed at making Apple’s camera software more appealing to advanced photographers.
The company is also bringing more Apple Intelligence features to the Photos app, including new tools called Reframe and Extend. Reframe can change the perspective of a photo, while Extend uses AI to generate additional portions of an image. That could mean filling in the lower half of a building that was excluded from the original shot. That could mean filling in the lower half of a building that was cut off in the original shot. Rival platforms from Google and others have offered similar capabilities for years.
While it may not arrive in the first version of iOS 27, Apple is also testing natural language prompt-based editing of photos so you can ask via voice or text for specific edits, like cropping or changing colours.
In addition, the company is planning a revamped Shortcuts app that lets people create automations using natural language. Instead of manually building workflows step by step, users could describe what they want to happen – for example, automatically starting a music playlist and sending their spouse an ETA when they get into the car and begin driving home from work.
There are also AI-created wallpapers, a systemwide grammar checker for text input, and a revamped Image Playground app that offers improved quality for AI-generated pictures and Genmoji custom emoji, Bloomberg News has reported. – Bloomberg
