Siri’s Apple Intelligence Upgrades Are Still a Couple of Months Away (at Least)

When Apple first revealed Apple Intelligence, its slate of generative AI features, a huge part of that announcement was a super-charged Siri. No longer would Apple’s digital assistant be lagging behind competitors like Google: With the power of AI, the new Siri might actually be useful.

When Apple Intelligence drops in full, Siri will reportedly be much more contextually aware, and be able to scan what’s on your phone to understand and answer questions you ask. If your friend sends you their new address, you can ask Siri “add this address to their contact card.” You don’t need to specify which address or which contact, because the assistant will, according to Apple, be able to understand that by what’s currently on-screen. Another huge feature is the ability to ask Siri to take action for you: You can ask Siri to send an email you have in your drafts, edit an image on your behalf, or add a photo to a specific note.

If your iPhone is compatible with Apple Intelligence, you might have assumed it supports this new Siri. iOS 18 has been out for a bit, after all, and Apple has been pushing Apple Intelligence (and the new Siri) hard, including with a campaign featuring Bella Ramsey. Some Apple Store employees even started a chant about AI during the iPhone 16 launch.

A waiting game

The thing is, the new Siri isn’t here yet. Apple did upgrade Siri a bit with iOS 18.1, and its the first wave of new AI features: That includes Siri’s new design, which glows around the edges of the display; the ability to type to Siri by double-tapping on the bottom of the screen; Siri’s ability to understand requests even when you misspeak; and a new feature that turns Siri into impromptu tech support (e.g., “How do I turn off Do Not Disturb?”).

But iOS 18.1 came and went without any further updates to Siri. iOS 18.2 added more Apple Intelligence features, including ChatGPT integration, but no major Siri changes. iOS 18.3 was a smaller update (Apple even disabled notification summaries for certain alert types), but, again, skipped any upgrades for Siri. At one point, iOS 18.4 appeared to be the likeliest Siri update, but, alas, no dice. (It does bring a number of new features, though.)

It’s not clear when Siri’s full form will arrive

Anyone hotly anticipating Siri’s AI promise will need to keep waiting. Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reported back in September that Apple was planning on rolling out most of Siri’s big features by iOS 18.4. However, shortly before Apple dropped the first 18.4 beta, Gurman said issues and bugs are plaguing the engineering team, who are having trouble getting Siri’s AI features working consistently. As a result, Siri could be delayed even further. It turned out his reporting was correct.

Now, the attention turns to iOS 18.5. Gurman’s report said Apple hopes to ship these new AI Siri features with the next update, which would likely roll out sometime in May. (The 18.5 beta would ship earlier.) In order to make it work, Apple has had to separate Siri into two parts—or brains, as Gurman puts it: One brain handles the traditional Siri tasks we’ve come to know over the years (setting reminders, making calls, choosing a song, etc.), while the other handles the new AI features. Ideally, these two brains would be morphed into one, to offer the most complete Siri experience possible. That simply isn’t ready yet—even for 18.5. Whenever these Siri features do arrive, they’ll be a bit underpowered compared to what Apple wants them to be.

Gurman says this theoretical super Siri (codenamed LLM Siri) won’t arrive until at least iOS 19 (and likely iOS 19.4), which Apple could introduce at this year’s WWDC. Like iOS 18.4, iOS 19.4 won’t arrive until the following year, 2026. Apple also reportedly wanted to make Siri more conversational, perhaps akin to ChatGPT’s Voice Mode, but, like other Apple AI features, it’s also delayed, and probably won’t be shown off at WWDC. In fact, it might not arrive until iOS 20, as late as 2027. Who knows where competitors like ChatGPT will be by then.

Not all iPhones will get new Siri features

While Apple supports iPhone as old as the XS with iOS 18, not many iPhones will actually get these new Siri features. That’s because Apple Intelligence is limited to iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max, and the iPhone 16 series—including the new iPhone 16e. If you have an iPhone 15 or older, you won’t see these new upgrades, even when you update to iOS 18.5, or whichever update contains the AI-overhauled Siri.