Apple has unveiled a major revamp of its digital assistant, introducing Siri AI, which the company pledged would deliver an enhanced artificial intelligence experience for users.
The iPhone manufacturer also revealed on Monday a series of modifications to its trust and safety features, asserting these would improve child safety when using Apple devices.
These disclosures took place at the company's annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), expected to be Tim Cook's final appearance as CEO prior to his departure in September after 15 years leading the firm.
Cook will be succeeded by John Ternus, a prominent figure at WWDC who did not deliver remarks during the company's main keynote address on Monday morning.
Siri's AI Transformation
Apple's rollout of Siri AI follows criticism that the company has lagged behind other technology giants.
The updated Siri will function across other Apple products and applications, and will also introduce a new app, comparable to offerings from OpenAI and Anthropic for their AI assistants.
The company assured that Siri AI would leverage a user's past interactions with the app, comprehension of images, and broad-world knowledge, serving as a more capable and conversational assistant than its current version.
During his remarks, the company's consistently optimistic senior vice president of Software Engineering, Craig Federighi, issued an unusual public critique of "AI for the sake of AI without considering the people it's supposed to be able to serve."
"We believe that truly helpful AI must be centered around you and your needs," Federighi stated, adding that Apple's new Siri AI experience was crafted with privacy in mind "at every step."
Apple Intelligence already includes writing tools and image editing capabilities, but the company has been gradual in deploying its enhanced Siri.
"Apple had to address its shortcomings in AI, and WWDC provided some answers," said Ben Wood, chief analyst at industry analyst firm FDM CCS Insight. "The company must now prove that its privacy-led, integration-first approach can translate into a meaningfully better everyday experience, not just parity with rivals."
"Whether it has succeeded or not will come down to user reaction when new capabilities are in their hands," Wood added.
A beta version of Siri AI will be available later this year for supported devices set to English—though not in the European Union.
"Over the past several months, EU regulators did not accept any of Apple's proposed solutions to bring Siri AI to the EU while safely supporting other virtual assistants," Apple stated in a news release on Monday.
Earlier this year, the company partnered with Google to launch Apple Foundation Models, which will be based on Google's Gemini models and cloud technology.
Trust and Safety
Apple also detailed modifications to its trust and safety initiatives as part of the rollout of iOS 27.
The company will expand its "ask" feature, which can allow parents to control whom their children can communicate with, requiring parental approval before they can interact with an unknown individual.
Apple also stated it will automatically censor any image sent to a known child's device if its system flags it as potentially inappropriate for sexual or violent content.
Federighi said Apple was providing "powerful, easy to use tools to manage what kids can see, who they talk to and when they have access."
The company has faced criticism from some child safety advocates for not doing enough to protect children.
A small group of protesters gathered outside early Monday morning ahead of the keynote to critique Apple's approach to child safety in its App Store.
Sarah Gardner of the HEAT Initiative, an advocacy group, chained herself to a tree in front of the Apple visitors centre as she demanded Apple remove all "nudification" technology from its App Store.
Gardner also asked that Apple take down all child sexual abuse material, known as CSAM, from iCloud, asserting that the company has made at least $177 million from sexually explicit AI deepfake apps.
Apple has maintained that nudification apps violate their guidelines and that they have proactively rejected and removed many such apps.
Earlier Monday, Sir Keir Starmer said in a speech that he was demanding that tech companies including Apple and Google block access to naked images on smartphones and other devices for anyone under 18 years old.
Cook's final keynote as head of Apple
Also notable was Tim Cook's last appearance at WWDC as CEO, a role he assumed after Apple co-founder Steve Jobs stepped down for health reasons shortly before his death.
Cook has held the position for 15 years.
Thousands of Apple employees and developers in the audience at Apple Park greeted him with a standing ovation.
"I've never seen so many iPhones before!," Cook joked.
Cook also appeared to become emotional as he said farewell.
"I've loved hearing your stories and hearing how you're enriching the lives of so many people around the world," he told the developers in the audience before thanking members of the Apple staff.
"Your imagination and ingenuity have inspired me for the last 15 years and I'm deeply grateful to have been on this journey with you."
Cook called it the "honour of a lifetime" to serve as head of the company.
His successor, John Ternus, did not appear as part of the main keynote presentation but was seated in the front row next to Cook at a media briefing on the company's new Siri AI features.
On Sunday evening, Ternus greeted attendees at a welcome reception that in some ways also served as his coming-out party, analysts say.
"WWDC 2026 gives Ternus a clear strategic runway: more personal devices, more contextual software, more intelligent services and a tighter link between silicon, hardware and AI," said Francisco Jeronimo, VP for data and analytics at market intelligence firm IDC EMEA.
"If Apple delivers the experience with the reliability, elegance and trust users expect, this could be remembered as the moment Siri and Apple Intelligence moved from the background of Apple's ecosystem to the centre of its future."
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