The upgrade addresses years of criticism about Siri's limitations compared to competitors. Internally codenamed "Campos," the revamped assistant will understand personal context by drawing information from apps like Messages, Notes, Calendar, and Photos—finally delivering the contextual intelligence users have demanded.
"This is Siri reimagined from the ground up," Apple executives explained in developer briefings. "The new architecture combines our proprietary AI models with Google's Gemini technology to create conversational AI that actually understands what you're asking and can act across your entire device ecosystem."
The enhanced Siri executes multi-step tasks across apps using App Intents—a fundamental capability that enables workflows like "Find the restaurant Sarah mentioned in Messages last week, check if it's open tonight, and add a reminder to make a reservation." Previous Siri versions required separate commands for each action.
Visual Intelligence, which CEO Tim Cook identified as one of Apple Intelligence's most popular features, gains expanded capabilities beyond the camera app. In iOS 26, visual intelligence now works with screenshots throughout the iPhone, analyzing images and providing contextual information on demand.