Apple's Overhauled Siri Hits Public Beta, Long After It Was Promised

Apple's rebuilt Siri, branded "Siri AI" at the company's WWDC event in June, is now available to the public as part of the iOS 27 public beta. It's the first time regular iPhone owners, not just developers, can get their hands on what Wired describes as Apple's "long-promised" revamped version of Siri.

According to Wired, which tested a developer beta version ahead of the public release, the new Siri is woven into the iPhone user experience in ways the old version never managed. It can dig up old vacation photos, fire off quick texts, and recommend a pancake spot, all from plain-language prompts. Wired called the results impressive, if not flawless.

What Actually Changed

The biggest visible shift is a new chatbot-style app that functions less like a fresh assistant and more like a running log of your conversations with Siri. Users can revisit old threads or start new ones, though Wired's reviewer noted Siri is now baked so deeply into the phone's search function that the standalone app sees less use than you'd expect.

Privacy-conscious users get a knob to turn: Settings, then Siri AI, then "Keep Conversations," where you can choose between keeping chats forever, for a year, or for 30 days. Apple deserves credit for not burying this option.

Nabila Popal, a senior research director at International Data Corporation who focuses on consumer devices, told Wired that Apple's integration work stands out. "They've integrated it across the entire ecosystem, so you can access Siri AI no matter where you are on the device," Popal said. "The accessibility of Siri AI and its integration across the operating system were really well done."

Siri can still be switched off entirely for users who want nothing to do with it. Anyone wary of AI assistants parsing their texts and photos by default should appreciate that Apple isn't forcing this on anyone, at least not yet.

The Part That Gets Glossed Over

Wired itself frames this Siri overhaul as "long-promised" — language that signals a gap between when Apple first showed off AI-powered Siri upgrades and when ordinary users actually got to try them. That gap isn't a minor detail. Wired's hands-on coverage focuses almost entirely on how the finished product performs now, without dwelling on why it took this long to arrive. A product review that skips the "why is this late" question doesn't give readers the full picture of whether Apple can execute on its AI roadmap going forward.

What's Still Unproven

This is a public beta, not a finished release. Beta software carries bugs by design, and it's worth backing up your device before installing it, just in case anything goes wrong. Wired reported no major issues on an iPhone 16 Pro Max during testing, but a limited hands-on isn't a stress test across Apple's full device lineup or its full base of iPhone owners.

Wired also notes that Siri AI currently lacks a memory feature to store user preferences — something standard among rival chatbots like ChatGPT or Claude — meaning users have to keep re-explaining preferences like dietary restrictions each time. Apple is expected to iterate and add capabilities down the line, according to Wired, but for now the assistant ships without that piece.

The review also describes an on-device "indexing" process that builds a searchable database from your texts, calendar, and app usage so Siri can answer contextual questions — a process that took over a week to complete in Wired's testing. How that data is handled, and how much of Siri's intelligence runs on-device versus elsewhere, remains a question worth tracking as the software moves from beta toward a fuller release.