Apple has opened its rebuilt Siri to public beta users, giving iPhone owners their first broad chance to test the company’s AI assistant before its expected wider release this fall.
The iOS 27 public beta, released Tuesday, moves the upgraded Siri beyond the developer community and into the hands of everyday users willing to install test software. For Apple, that means a much larger trial of a product meant to answer pressure from ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Claude and other AI assistants.
The new Siri was announced at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference in June. It is designed to pull from information on a user’s device, including emails, photos and messages, while also responding to what is visible on screen and answering general questions with AI-generated responses.
Apple has also pushed the assistant deeper into the operating system. Users can still call it up by voice or the side button, but it can also be reached from the Dynamic Island and through Spotlight, the iPhone’s built-in search tool.
For users more familiar with chatbot apps, Siri now has a stand-alone app for the first time. The upgraded assistant is also available across Apple’s wider product lineup, including iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, CarPlay, AirPods, Apple TV and Vision Pro.
The company says the new Siri uses Apple Intelligence, including foundation models that run on Apple devices and its Private Cloud Compute system. Apple has said that system is built so personal data is not stored or made accessible to the company.
Early developer testing showed Siri could handle tasks such as finding photos, summarising group texts, adding calendar items from messages and answering questions about objects seen through the camera. But testers also encountered glitches, including confused searches and error messages.
Apple is expected to release iOS 27 more widely in September. For now, the company is asking users to try a beta product that could still behave like one.
