Apple Unveils Siri AI, a Smarter Assistant With More Customizable Voices That Tech Company Claims Sounds More Natural

Apple said it has rebuilt the Siri personal assistant from the ground up with artificial intelligence at its core — in a forthcoming version called Siri AI.

Siri AI was part of the announcements at Monday’s kickoff to its 2026 Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), taking place at its Apple Park headquarters in Cupertino, California.

Siri AI will have a more personalized voice experience, according to Apple, that will sound more natural than the traditional Siri synthetic voice. Users will be able to adjust the pace, expressivity and accent of Siri AI’s conversational experience. The new Siri AI will be able to access and interact with all the apps and data on a user’s iPhone, but with strong privacy controls, said Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of software engineering.

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“AI is incredibly powerful technology,” Federighi said. “Still, some appear to be racing forward” to develop “AI for the sake of AI” without regard for the humans using the technology.

The next generation of Apple Intelligence will unlock a “brand new Siri,” Federighi said.

The iPhone camera will get a new “Siri AI mode” to be able to take action on what’s in the field of vision — for example, you can point it to a plate of food to get an estimate of the nutritional info.

Siri AI will be accessible systemwide, capable of reading what’s on-screen and interacting with your apps. But Apple’s SVP of software engineering Craig Federighi said it was designed “with privacy at every step.” Queries are all either processed on device or in the cloud via Apple’s Private Cloud Compute.

As per Apple’s tradition, CEO Tim Cook opened the WWDC keynote, in what is one of his last public appearances as chief executive: In September, he’s set to step aside to become executive chairman and John Ternus, senior VP of hardware engineering, will become Apple’s next CEO.