iOS 27 Siri Review: Is Apple's AI Assistant Finally Good?

Apple's most delayed AI promise finally shipped, and at least one early reviewer says it's changed a daily habit. TechCrunch's hands-on account of iOS 27's revamped Siri opens with a blunt admission: "In previous years, I would have defaulted to going to ChatGPT or Gemini to get answers for a question." With the new Siri, that habit reportedly broke.

The overhaul runs on Apple's new Foundation Models, distilled in partnership with Google's Gemini but built specifically for Apple Silicon and processed through Apple's Private Cloud Compute, which keeps personal data from being stored or accessed by Apple itself.

A few specifics stand out from the release:

• Siri now gets its own dedicated app with chat history, plus customizable voice and expressiveness settings
• New "vibe-coding" tools let users describe automations in plain language — Apple's example: "Show me today's to-do items every morning at 8 a.m."
• The AI features are limited to iPhone 15 Pro and later, due to on-device RAM requirements

The bigger context here is competitive rather than technical. Siri has spent roughly two years trailing ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude while Apple worked through a public, repeatedly delayed overhaul, and this release marks the company's first real attempt to close that gap at iPhone scale.

A rollout reaching hundreds of millions of devices in a single update, with non-English languages arriving in October. Whether this review reflects the broader experience once millions of ordinary users get their hands on it, rather than a single favorable first impression, is the real test still ahead.