Siri will finally get updates — Apple will make it 'smart'

Siri has long been criticized for its limited functionality, but the new leadership is finally making major changes. Along with the release of iOS 26 in the fall, users will get a much smarter voice assistant that can integrate deeper into everyday tasks, 9to5Mac reports.

What new features will Siri have?

Apple is preparing a comprehensive breakthrough in several areas. First, the assistant will learn from your data within the ecosystem while ensuring privacy. For example, it will be able to find and launch a podcast that a friend mentioned in an email or text message. It will also be able to tell you when your mother's flight will land by comparing the email with the plane's actual tracking information.

The second improvement is truly "hands-free" control. With iOS 26, Siri will be able to perform hundreds of new actions and carry out multistep requests between different apps. For instance, you can say, "Add this morning's photos to the Birdwatching note", and the assistant will transfer the photos automatically, bypassing the need to open Photos and Notes manually.

Finally, Siri will have full-screen awareness. If a friend sends you a new address in an iMessage, you can simply say, "Add this address to my contacts". "Add this address to my contacts", and the necessary fields will be filled in automatically. This type of contextual interaction will be especially useful on the Vision Pro headset once the functionality is available.

Apple is expected to implement these changes that Siri has been missing in the fall, along with the final release of iOS 26. If the company implements its plans fully, Siri will come closer to being a real digital agent for the first time in years.

Last year, it was revealed that Apple was developing an updated version of Siri that would be "more conversational" thanks to advanced large-scale language models. The update was expected to be included in iOS 19.4, but development of this ChatGPT-like Siri is currently behind the schedule.

As we previously reported, Apple, a self-proclaimed leader in privacy protection, agreed to pay $95 million as part of a civil lawsuit settlement. The complaint alleged that the Siri virtual assistant was used to wiretap iPhone and other company device users without authorization.