Apple debuts revamped ‘Siri AI’ and new child safety features for iPhones and iPads

CEO Tim Cook stands on stage at the annual World Wide Developers Conference at Apple's headquarters in Cupertino, California, on 8 June 2026. Photograph: Noah Berger/AP View image in fullscreen CEO Tim Cook stands on stage at the annual World Wide Developers Conference at Apple's headquarters in Cupertino, California, on 8 June 2026. Photograph: Noah Berger/AP Apple debuts revamped ‘Siri AI’ and new child safety features for iPhones and iPads At his final WWDC keynote, Tim Cook highlights AI-forward upgrade to the voice assistant to be widely released in fall After years of anticipation, user frustration and false starts, Apple announced a major upgrade to Siri at its annual developer conference on Monday. The voice assistant will come integrated with Apple’s artificial intelligence tool, Apple Intelligence, and has been rechristened “Siri AI”. The new Siri, which will be widely released in the fall, will more closely resemble AI chatbots like ChatGPT or Google Gemini, than a question-and-answer tool that draws from the web. A rejuvenated Siri is part of Apple’s overhaul of its AI strategy, showcased during its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) at its Silicon Valley headquarters. The unveiling comes after years of the iPhone maker rolling out AI features that lagged behind competitors like Google. The conference kicked off with Tim Cook greeting the crowd to a standing ovation. The CEO, 65, is stepping down from the company in the fall after leading it over the last 15 years. Under his watch, Apple became one of the most profitable publicly traded companies on Earth. “I’ve never seen so many iPhones before,” Cook joked to the crowd of developers filming him. Shortly after the conference began, Apple announced what the audience had been waiting for: an “all new Siri”. Mike Rockwell, Apple’s vice-president of Siri engineering, took the stage and explained how the company had rebuilt the tool with new generative AI at its core. Siri’s revamp is powered by Google’s Gemini AI model via a billion-dollar partnership between the two companies . The assistant will have its own dedicated app, Rockwell said, and the tool will be more conversational and be able to pull from Apple’s native app ecosystem – on both mobile devices and laptops – to help with daily planning, finding information and directions. In a demo, Rockwell showed a photo of a beach at sunset and asked Siri to identify the location. After the app did so, he asked it for a friend’s address whom he believed lived nearby. Rockwell then had Siri give him directions to the beach in Santa Cruz, California, with a stop at his friend’s house, all completed within the Siri interface rather than between multiple apps. The app is slated to be able to proofread, shop, add calendar events and use the camera to do things like retrieve nutrition information if you point it at food. Initially, it will be available only in English. “A fundamentally re-architected Siri inside iOS 27 with a little help fr