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The iPhone Duo might be making the most headlines, but Apple's massive push into AI remains the much bigger story. If you're an Apple user, there's no better time to take stock of the Apple Intelligence features on your iPad, iPhone, and Mac. You'll find everything from an AI assistant to an image generator to a workout pal and more, so I'm here to guide you through how to get access and what works best.
What Is Apple Intelligence?
Apple Intelligence is an umbrella term for Apple's AI features, whether they run in the cloud or on your device. Writing Tools, for example, can help you generate text, while Visual Intelligence can identify objects in pictures you take. The latest iteration of Siri, which Apple calls Siri AI, is essentially an AI chatbot that can answer your questions and conduct conversations.
We don’t have all the details about the models powering Apple Intelligence, but the company did enter into a high-profile partnership with Google earlier this year. I thus tend to think Gemini is to Apple Intelligence what ChatGPT is to Copilot, which is to say one ultimately drives the other.
Device Check: Will Your iPhone, iPad, or Mac Support Apple Intelligence?
To use the latest Apple Intelligence features, you need a modern Apple device with the latest software version. Broadly speaking, the full list of supported devices covers the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max or newer, the M1 iPad Air and iPad Pro or newer, and M1 MacBooks and Macs or newer.
Apple Intelligence also works on other Apple products, too, but only alongside one of the core devices above. For example, Workout Buddy, an AI-based personal trainer, is available on the Apple Watch (Series 6 and later), but it requires a compatible iPhone (or a cellular connection) and a pair of Bluetooth earbuds. Apple Intelligence’s Live Translation feature works with a variety of AirPods, but you also need a compatible iPhone.
I recommend checking whether your Apple devices support Apple Intelligence and to what extent before you set your sights on a particular feature. Not all devices that support Apple Intelligence support every one of its features. For example, the Sound Recognition feature on Apple Watch, which automatically detects sounds like alarms or doorbells and alerts you even without a nearby iPhone, requires an Apple Watch 12 Series or Apple Watch Ultra 4.
Is Apple Intelligence Really Free? Here's the Fine Print
Apple Intelligence is entirely free. As long as you have a compatible Apple device, you can use Apple Intelligence at no additional cost.
However, you do need to spring for an iCloud+ subscription to use certain AI-powered features in the Home app, such as security camera video summaries. Apple also notes that it will implement usage limits for AI features and lock additional access behind an additional fee. The specifics remain unclear for now.
Getting Started: How Apple Intelligence Works Across Your Devices
This varies depending on the feature in question and your device, but in general, Apple Intelligence features are available seamlessly across apps and Apple devices. For example, you can use Writing Tools anywhere you can enter text and directly leverage the power of AI to create automations in the Shortcuts app.
You can also connect ChatGPT to Apple Intelligence. For example, you can ask ChatGPT questions through Siri or get it to generate images from within Apple’s Playground app. You need a ChatGPT account to set up this connection, but it doesn't need to be a paid account.
Below, I explain what each major Apple Intelligence feature does and how to use them, listed in order of importance. This isn’t an exhaustive inventory of every way to use AI on Apple devices, but rather an analysis of the most significant capabilities.
Siri AI: A Legit Chatbot, or Still the Same Old Assistant?
Siri is now a full-on AI chatbot, meaning you can talk with it exactly how you would with ChatGPT or similar services. It can answer questions, search the web, and solve problems. It even competes with Gemini’s Personal Intelligence feature, building a collection of personal data it draws on to give you personalized answers; Apple calls this "personal context understanding." Siri also remembers conversations, which you can pick up from where you left off from any device. Like an AI agent, Siri can perform tasks for you and interact with various apps and services, too. Most importantly, it’s still Siri, so it’s available everywhere on Apple devices.
Siri offers too many capabilities to list here, so I recommend checking out the five most game-changing features available now and how to begin mastering its AI-powered form. Generally, though, Siri is both more useful and intuitive than in the past. For example, you can quickly open up the Camera app, snap a picture, and ask Siri a question about it, leveraging Visual Intelligence. Alternatively, you can ask Siri to go through your email, find the article you received this morning, and share it with your friend in a text message telling them it reminded you of the conversations you had last week. These examples are just the beginning of what you can do with Siri powered by AI (often with a single prompt).
I’ve never been much of a fan of traditional digital assistants because, historically, they made you repeat yourself or rephrase commands in unnatural ways. But I can imagine myself using the current version of Siri. In fact, for the first time, I enabled Siri on my iPhone. It’s often just easier to hold down a button and ask Siri to do or search for something than to do it myself.
Nonetheless, Siri isn’t perfect. Sometimes, it hangs when generating responses or processing images. Even when I tried having Siri compose short messages, it often didn't write in my style, adopting a stiffer, more formal tone. And although Siri’s voice now sounds more realistic than before, you won't mistake it for a real person. Above all else, it’s an assistant that runs on an AI model, so it can and will get things wrong.
Safari: Vibe Coding Extensions and Smart Tab Management
The headline feature of Apple Intelligence in Safari is the ability to vibe code extensions. Simply describe the browser functionality you want, and Safari will create it. I love this concept, but your mileage may vary depending on the extension you want to create and how much time you spend on it. My colleague Chris Hoffman successfully created three extensions on a Mac: an AI overview blocker in Google Search, a background-tab playback button, and a multi-image downloader. However, none of the extensions I tried creating on iOS worked, even after a few iterations. That includes an auto-fullscreen feature for videos and a way to quickly skip to the ingredients and steps on recipe pages. I was able to get the recipe viewer extension working on a Mac, though, so you might have better luck creating extensions on a Mac than on an iPhone.
Outside of extension creation is Safari's Notify Me notification feature. If you’re watching the price of a certain item on a website, you can set Notify Me to let you know when there’s a sale. This generally works as expected, so it can be a helpful way to stay up to date without constantly checking a page.
The AI-powered tab organization capability is also straightforward. As you open new tabs, Safari will automatically group them by topic, enabling you to switch between groups and new tabs with fresh topics at the tap of a button. Other browsers have this feature, but it's always handy.
Apple Photos: Magic Search, Clean Up, and Generative Edits
You can use Apple Intelligence in Apple’s Photos app on iPad, iPhone, and Mac. It primarily makes it easier to find photos and videos through natural language searches. You can search for something simple (such as "waterfall") or more complex (such as "niece’s birthday party"). Just keep in mind that your queries might not turn up results if the Photos app still needs to fully index your library. To make searching for people and pets easier, you can name them.
Outside of search, Apple Intelligence enables you to create Memories (Apple’s version of automated album and movie creations) and use the Clean Up feature (which removes objects or people from photos). You can read our Apple Photos review for a deeper dive into these features, but, in short, Memories does a good job of compiling your photos into galleries and videos that you can then tweak to your preferences by adding music or removing certain pictures. Clean Up competently removes unwanted distractions in images.
The latest additions to Apple Intelligence in the Photos app are Extend, which expands images beyond their original edges, and Reframe, which adjusts photo composition by shifting the camera position. The results of these tools largely depend on the photo in question and how much new content you use them to add to photos. However, if you’re not careful, they can and will introduce errors and distortion, so I recommend keeping generated portions of images as small as possible.
Visual Intelligence vs. Playground: Useful Camera Insights, Gimmicky Art
Visual Intelligence, which is Apple’s take on AI image recognition, is available on the iPad, iPhone, and Mac. If you have ever shared your camera with ChatGPT or Gemini so it could comment on your environment, you can expect a similar experience with Visual Intelligence. In fact, Visual Intelligence even allows you to query ChatGPT about the things you see.
Simply aim your phone at an animal, a business, a landmark, a piece of artwork, a plant, or some text, and Apple Intelligence can tell you more about what you’re looking at. It can even go as far as adding an event from a flier you find to your calendar, giving you directions to an address you see, and translating text from languages you don’t understand. Visual Intelligence also works with screenshots of content on your screen, allowing you to quickly ask questions about it, read the image aloud, or summarize it.
Apple Intelligence can generate images, too. Apple’s Playground app allows you to create pictures and emoji, the latter of which Apple calls Genmoji. You can use natural language to describe whatever you want and optionally use ChatGPT’s image tech, though it’s not clear which model, if you prefer. If words aren’t enough, you can upload a photo as a point of reference. You can also prompt Playground to edit your images. Just keep in mind that it can introduce errors and distortion, particularly in areas with fine detail or lots of text.
I don't find Playground valuable for much more than generating silly pictures (or emoji) to send to friends and family. Although its editing functionality might sound more useful, both its performance and the existence of the Photos app’s editing tools make it something I am unlikely to use.
Intelligent Shortcuts: Power Automations With a Single Prompt
If you don’t use Apple Shortcuts, think of them like ‘If this, then that’ statements that can automate any number of things on your iPad, iPhone, or Mac. Check out our guide on Apple Shortcuts for a full explanation on how to use them with Apple Intelligence.
Leveraging AI within shortcuts is easy. This includes AI image generation via Apple’s Playground app, Visual Intelligence, and a variety of AI models. AI model access is the most interesting component here because it enables shortcuts that do everything from checking the current weather and writing a summary about it to searching the web for the latest information about an upcoming video game.
You can also use Apple Intelligence to create shortcuts using natural language. Apple Shortcuts will prompt you with follow-up questions as necessary. But you can’t create all shortcuts this way, which is disappointing. For example, I described a shortcut that turns on my lights via the Hue app every morning and adjusts their brightness and color throughout the day. However, the app told me I had to open the Shortcut editor to create this shortcut myself. You usually need to create shortcuts yourself when they involve multiple third-party apps, which limits the feature's usefulness.
Writing Tools: Edit and Generate Text Wherever You Can Type
Writing Tools is Apple's term for its set of AI-powered writing features across the iPad, iPhone, and Mac. It can help you generate, proofread, rewrite, and summarize text. If you connect Apple Intelligence to ChatGPT, you can compose text with ChatGPT within Writing Tools.
You can access Writing Tools pretty much wherever you can enter text. Just highlight any text you want to adjust, then tap the Writing Tools icon to open the Writing Tools interface. You can describe what changes you want at the top of this panel. Below the text field, you'll find options for proofreading and rewriting, as well as concise, friendly, and professional tones. Aside from a standard summary option, you can choose to turn text into key points, a list, or a table. At the bottom of the interface, you can click Compose to access ChatGPT, where you can describe what you want it to generate.
Writing Tools works as advertised, but I find it somewhat clunky to use on a touch screen because of how many taps it requires to accomplish anything. That aside, if you do a significant amount of writing on your Apple device and want help with grammatical issues or finding the right tone, Writing Tools can be handy.
Live Translation: Real-Time Audio and Message Translation That Works
Apple Intelligence enables Live Translation, which does exactly what its name implies: provide real-time translation of FaceTime calls, phone calls, and messages so you can converse with folks who don’t speak your language. This isn’t new technology (Google already offers live translation), but it is useful. Live Translation works on iPads, iPhones, and Macs, and it's also accessible via AirPods, such as the new AirPods 5. You can read about our in-depth experience with it on the iPhone.
Live Translation is effective and intuitive. Activating it takes only a few taps (or clicks), whether you want to translate calls or messages. Although it can miss a phrase or word here and there, its translations are generally accurate. Captions in FaceTime calls and voiced translations in calls have just a two-to-three-second delay, so you don’t have to deal with any long pauses in conversations while the translation catches up, either.
Messages and Notifications: Minor Tweaks You Might Just Ignore
Apple Intelligence plays a small role in the Messages app on iPad, iPhone, and Mac, too. For one, you can use images you generate with Playground as backgrounds for conversations. Apple Intelligence can also suggest you start a poll when it notices different options appear in a conversation.
When composing messages, Apple Intelligence’s Smart Reply feature can suggest replies. If you select a Smart Reply, it appears in your text field, and you can further refine it with Writing Tools. Typing out short messages versus tapping them when suggested can save time, albeit not much. Nonetheless, it’s a quality-of-life feature that doesn’t get in the way.
You can also use Apple Intelligence to summarize a notification or a group of them. You can specify which apps' notifications it summarizes, choose which notifications to bundle, and specify a time of day when you want to see the summaries. I don't find much value in the notification summaries. If I get so many notifications that aren’t urgent enough to deal with when I get them that I need a notification summary, I’d rather turn off said notifications entirely.
Contextual suggestions are also on the way. For example, if you get a text reminding you to take out the trash, a button will appear beneath the message to quickly add it to the Reminders app.
Workout Buddy: A Smarter Cheerleader for Your Wrist
Workout Buddy is something between, well, an AI workout buddy and an AI personal trainer. If you have an Apple Watch (Series 6 or later), an iPhone 15 Pro or later, and a pair of Bluetooth earbuds, you can use Workout Buddy. In short, Workout Buddy updates you on your cadence, heart rate zones, and pace, as well as any targets you set during your workout, among other things.
It now works without your phone when you have cellular service on your watch, and it features more detailed personal context, which are some solid improvements.
What’s Next: Live Rewind, Siri Recap, and Coming Updates
Not every Apple Intelligence feature is live just yet. For example, Siri AI is currently only available in English, while support for French, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, and Spanish is coming in October. Also on the way are:
Contextual suggestions in the Messages app.
Live Rewind on the Apple Watch, which can replay the last 15 seconds of audio from your life.
Siri Recap on the Apple Watch, which takes notes on your conversations throughout the day.
The ability for Apple to automatically update old or weak passwords.
It’s not clear when exactly these features will arrive, but at least Live Rewind and Siri Recap should be out by the end of the year. Apple says contextual suggestions and the automatic password fix features are coming in “a future software update.”
Privacy and Security: How Apple Intelligence Keeps Your Data Off Cloud Servers
Apple’s AI privacy protections are among the best in the industry. According to its privacy policies (which read about the same whether it’s for iPad, iPhone, or macOS), when users engage with Apple Intelligence, it analyzes whether it can process the action in question locally or requires more computational power. Locally processing means your information stays on your device.
If a request requires more computational power, Apple Intelligence relies on Privacy Cloud Compute. According to Apple, Apple can’t access your data and doesn’t collect data with Privacy Cloud Compute. And once your request is complete, Apple removes any related data from the cloud. Apple notes that “independent privacy and security researchers can inspect the code that runs on Apple silicon servers that enable Private Cloud Compute to verify this privacy promise at any time,” continuing, “independent experts can [also] inspect the software that runs on Private Cloud Compute servers.”
Of course, if you use ChatGPT within Apple Intelligence, you send your data to OpenAI, which doesn't offer anything like Privacy Cloud Compute. OpenAI can’t see your IP address, but it can see your general location, alongside any data necessary for ChatGPT to fulfill your request. OpenAI also collects additional data, such as device type, feature used, language, and time zone. While this isn’t quite as private as using Apple Intelligence alone, less of your data goes to OpenAI when you use it through Apple Intelligence compared with if you were to use ChatGPT's apps or site directly.
The Verdict: Good Enough to Change How You Use Apple Devices
Some Apple Intelligence features, such as an AI-powered Siri, can be game changers for almost everyone. However, other features just aren't as broadly relevant (Safari tab organization and Smart Reply) or feel underwhelming (AI notification summaries). But more important than any individual feature is how seamlessly Apple Intelligence folds into Apple's device and OS ecosystem. Moreover, Apple Intelligence won’t intrude on your experience if you don’t seek it out. If you’re looking for an all-encompassing suite of AI tools that doesn't require you to give your data to yet another company, you could reasonably get by with just Apple Intelligence. That might not sound like a ringing endorsement, but it's a monumental accomplishment that Apple Intelligence is now simply good enough for most people's general AI needs. I plan to update this story as the experience improves, so stay tuned for future developments.
About Our Expert
I’ve been writing about consumer technology and video games for over a decade at a variety of publications, including Destructoid, GamesRadar+, Lifewire, PCGamesN, Trusted Reviews, and What Hi-Fi?, among many others. At PCMag, I review AI and productivity software—everything from chatbots to to-do list apps. In my free time, I’m likely cooking something, playing a game, or tinkering with my computer.
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