More than two years after its announcement, the new Siri is finally available to users.

On Monday, Apple launched its latest operating system updates across its ecosystem of platforms: iOS 27, iPadOS 27, macOS 27, watchOS 27, and visionOS 27. At the heart of the update is the long-awaited Siri AI upgrade, but there are also many other smaller AI updates that together create a more seamless user experience with AI.

At a high level, the new updates will make Siri a lot more helpful by enabling it to understand conversational prompts and interactions. Most importantly, it will use its personal context—or your specific information across the ecosystem of Apple apps—to better assist you and take action.

For instance, at the iPhone launch event in Cupertino last week, the team briefed me on using it for prompts such as "When is my marathon?" Then it could look into your email to find that information and populate it for you. And you could follow up with "Add it to my calendar," and it would do so. Another multi-step action it could take, using the new Visual Intelligence, is to scan a flyer with the camera, add the event to your calendar when prompted, and share the event in a group chat.

The Siri update alone should be a compelling reason for people with eligible devices (devices with chipsets powerful enough to support Apple Intelligence; see the list here), but other AI features are worth noting as well. The Deep View's Jason Hiner and I have both been testing the beta since June, and here are the highlights:

• Photo expand: Uses AI to fill in pixels of your image to make the image switch from portrait to landscape or fix an image where something got cut off, for example
• Spatial reframe: After an image is captured, you can drag to slightly change the angle it was shot from, with AI reframing in the pixels as needed
• Siri AI app: The standalone app is useful for chatting with AI via text input
• Expressive voices: Customizable Siri voice, including control over pace and expressiveness
• Dictation: Voice-to-text dictation is much more accurate and versatile, making writing better in any app

Lastly, while not AI, another major reason to download the update is the plethora of performance improvements Apple is promising, such as up to 80% faster AirDrop transfers, faster Apple Music playback start, faster PDF saving, faster message loading in Mail, and other quality-of-life upgrades.

Our Deeper View

While the new iPhone Duo is capturing most of the news cycle, don't sleep on the Siri AI upgrade to your existing iPhone and other Apple devices that comes in iOS 27 and other operating system updates. Of course, OS updates are worth installing to ensure your phone is protected from the latest security threats. However, this update, in particular, makes a strong case for updating, since it can make you feel like you have a new phone without spending an extra dollar. Having said that, if you have an iPhone model older than the iPhone 15 Pro—the oldest model to get the Siri AI update— then now might be the time to upgrade your hardware to not only take advantage of Siri AI but also future-proof your phone for the next waves of AI features.