Apple finally delivered the AI assistant upgrade it promised two years ago. At the WWDC26 keynote on June 8, 2026, the company unveiled a rebuilt version of its virtual assistant, now called Siri AI, powered by Apple Foundation Models and bolstered by a partnership with Google Gemini.
What Apple actually announced
The new Siri AI features real conversational abilities, personal context awareness pulled from apps like Mail and Messages, and on-screen understanding that lets it interpret what you’re looking at on your device. Apple also launched a dedicated Siri AI app, which serves as the central hub for these capabilities. The system runs on Apple Foundation Models, the company’s in-house large language models, with Google Gemini handling supplemental processing tasks.
Privacy remains the selling point. Apple emphasized that its AI runs through a combination of on-device processing and what it calls Private Cloud Compute, a system designed to handle more complex tasks in the cloud without exposing user data.
Developer betas started rolling out on June 8-9, with a broader public release expected later in 2026. The rollout will exclude the EU and China at launch, likely due to regulatory constraints in both markets.
