Siri's Apple Intelligence Upgrades Are Still a Few Updates Away

When Apple first revealed Apple Intelligence, it's slate of generative AI features, a huge part of that announcement was a super-charged Siri. No longer would Apple's digital assistant be lagging behind competitors like Google: With the power of AI, the new Siri might actually be useful.

When Apple Intelligence drops in full, Siri will reportedly be much more contextually aware, and be able to scan what's on your phone to understand and answer questions you ask. If your friend sends you their new address, you can ask Siri "add this address to their contact card." You don't need to specify which address or which contact, because the assistant will, according to Apple, be able to understand that by what's currently on-screen. Another huge feature is the ability to ask Siri to take action for you: You can ask Siri to send an email you have in your drafts, edit an image on your behalf, or add a photo to a specific note.

If you bought a new iPhone 16 this week, you might have assumed your phone came with this new Siri. iOS 18 has been out for a bit, after all, and Apple is advertising Apple Intelligence (and the new Siri) with a new campaign featuring Bella Ramsey. Some Apple Store employees even started a chant about AI during the iPhone 16 launch.

A waiting game

The thing is, the new Siri isn't here yet. Hell, Apple Intelligence as a whole isn't here yet-at least, not officially. Apple is releasing the first wave of new AI features with iOS 18.1, currently in beta testing. If you install the beta on your iPhone, you can try out some of Apple's upcoming features, plus a preview of the new Siri upgrades: That includes Siri's new design, which glows around the edges of the display; the ability to type to Siri by double-tapping on the bottom of the screen; Siri's ability to understand requests even when you misspeak; and a new feature that turns Siri into impromptu tech support (e.g., "How do I turn off Do Not Disturb?").

But even when iOS 18.1 does come out, most of Siri's biggest upgrades, like contextual awareness and actionable tasks, won't be present. As it happens, they won't be present with iOS 18.2, either.

Siri's full form coming in a couple updates

According to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman (via TechRadar), Apple is planning on rolling out most of Siri's big upgrades by iOS 18.4. Gurman says some Siri features are being considered for iOS 18.3, too, but didn't provide specifics on which features those may be.

While Apple doesn't provide a timeline in advance of future iOS releases, we can look at past update to get a rough estimate. iOS 17.3, for example, dropped in January, while iOS 17.4 (which added a bunch of EU-only features) released in March. If that timeline holds, expect to see Siri features drop by March, with some coming as early as January. Of course, if you're open to installing beta software, you could try these features even earlier. Apple dropped the first developer beta for iOS 17.3 in December, and the first developer beta for iOS 17.4 in January, so beta testers could, in theory, try out these Siri upgrades as soon as the end of this year.

Not all iPhones will get new Siri features

While Apple supports iPhone as old as the XS with iOS 18, not many iPhones will actually get these new Siri features. That's because Apple Intelligence is limited to iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max, and the iPhone 16 series. If you have an iPhone 15 or older, you won't see these new upgrades, even when you update to iOS 18.1, iOS 18.3, or iOS 18.4.