by Juli Clover
Apple started making Siri more capable with Apple Intelligence features in iOS 18.1 and iOS 18.2, but there are additional Siri updates that are set to come in 2025 with iOS 18 and iOS 19. By this time next year, Siri should be much smarter, if Apple’s planned changes live up to what the company says is coming.
Features Coming in iOS 18
The best new Siri features haven’t been added yet, but Apple previewed them at WWDC when Apple Intelligence was first announced. We’re expecting these changes to come in iOS 18.4 in the spring.
Personal Context
With personal context, Siri will keep track of your emails, messages, files, photos, and more. If it’s on your device, Siri will know where it is and where it came from.
Using this information, Siri will be be able to help you better find something that you’re looking for, whether it’s a flight number in an email you received, a file you downloaded, or a photo that someone sent you.
Siri will use personal context to learn more about you too, which means Siri will be able to better help you complete tasks and keep track of everything on your device.
Some examples Apple has provided:
- Play that podcast that Jamie recommended.
- When is mom’s flight landing?
Onscreen Awareness
Siri will know what’s on your screen, so when you make a request, you can reference what you’re looking at. If someone sends you an address via text, for example, you’ll be able to tell Siri to add “this” to your contacts, and Siri will know what you’re talking about.
Onscreen awareness will essentially allow Siri to perform actions related to whatever information is on your iPhone or iPad‘s display.
In iOS 18.2, Siri is able to send a screenshot of your display to ChatGPT and ChatGPT can perform some of this same functionality, but Apple has clarified that the ChatGPT integration is not the same thing as the future onscreen awareness feature coming to Siri.
App Integration
Siri is gaining deeper integration with apps, and it’s going to allow the personal assistant to perform hundreds of new actions in and across both Apple apps and third-party apps. This feature is so wide-ranging that it’s going to cover a lot of new functions, but Apple has provided examples like using Siri to bring up articles from the Safari Reading List, or sending photos from a specific location to someone, e.g. “send the photos from the party on Friday to Eric.”
Siri will be able to complete multi-step tasks too, such as editing a photo that you take and then sending it to someone all with one command.
Features Rumored for iOS 19
All of the features above are part of iOS 18 and are going to come in an iOS 18 update, but rumors suggest that Apple has a next-generation version of Siri in development for iOS 19.
Siri in iOS 19 will rely on large language models, or LLMs. LLMs are what power ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Claude, and other AI chatbot services. An LLM version of Siri will be able to hold ongoing conversations, and it will be more like speaking with a human. Siri will be able to perform more complex tasks, and will be able to better compete with ChatGPT.
Apple plans to replace the current version of Siri with LLM Siri in the future. So far, it sounds like it’s going to be announced in iOS 19, but the actual functionality might not come until an iOS 19 update that Apple releases in 2026, much like how Apple Intelligence features have been spread over iOS 18 updates.
We’ll hear about iOS 19 features in June at WWDC, and it’s possible we could get at least some new Siri functionality when iOS 19 launches in September 2025.
When to Expect the New Siri Features
The features that Apple has planned for iOS 18 are expected in iOS 18.4, and it looks like that’s an update that will come out in April. Apple will release iOS 18.3 in late January, and then we’ll get the iOS 18.4 beta. iOS 18.4 will be beta tested for a couple months before it is released to the public.
iOS 19 features will be introduced in June and the update will launch in September, but we may not get everything at once and some features could come as updates to iOS 19 later in 2025 and in 2026.
More on Siri’s Capabilities in iOS 18 and Beyond
We have a full Apple Intelligence Siri guide on all of the Siri features that have been introduced in iOS 18, iOS 18.1, and iOS 18.2, as well as a look at what to expect in the future.
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