Apple Unveils iOS 27 and Siri AI at WWDC26

At WWDC 2026, Apple presented iOS 27. This time, developers focused on three fundamental pillars: a global rethinking of the voice assistant (now officially Siri AI), optimization of the Liquid Glass interface, and unprecedented parental control and cybersecurity measures.

🧠 1. Siri AI: Relaunch based on Google Gemini models

The biggest announcement of the conference was a complete overhaul of Apple's assistant. Instead of executing isolated commands, Siri has become a full-fledged contextual AI agent:

• Hybrid architecture: The new Siri AI is built on Apple's own language models (Apple Intelligence), but for complex queries and up-to-date information from the web, it natively uses Google's Gemini cloud and servers.

• Onscreen Awareness: Your Assistant now understands everything that’s happening on your iPhone screen. You can ask it to find flight details in Mail, check the weather, add an event to Calendar, and message a friend—all in a single, continuous conversation.

• A standalone Siri app: A full-fledged hub that keeps your conversation history and seamlessly syncs across iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple Watch. Animations on Dynamic Island now allow you to easily swipe down to expand this interface.

• Voice customization: Users received sliders to adjust the speech rate and emotional expressiveness of Siri's voice.

Note: New Siri AI chips will temporarily not be available in EU countries in fall 2026 due to regulatory restrictions.

🎨 2. Liquid Glass Interface and Smart Camera

• Transparency slider: The Liquid Glass design language introduced last year has received a major UI update. iOS 27 introduces a custom transparency slider that lets you manually adjust interface elements from a completely glassy look to a deep blackout for better readability. The icons themselves are now clearer thanks to additional layers of optical refraction.

• Siri Mode in Camera: A separate smart search mode has appeared in the Camera app. Through the viewfinder, you can instantly launch an analysis of objects around you, calculate restaurant bills (Bill Splitting), or get detailed nutritional values ​​of products.

• AI Reframing in Photos: The Photos app now features Spatial Reframing, powered by Apple Intelligence, which can refine and expand the edges of a frame after you take a photo. The Clean Up object removal tool has also been improved, and a long-awaited tool for automatically creating slideshows has been added.

⚡ 3. Software speed: Works 30% faster

Apple has redesigned the underlying Spotlight search infrastructure and internal processes of the system:

• Application launch is 30% faster;

• File transfers via AirDrop are now 80% faster;

• Thanks to the updated CPU scheduler, older iPhone models have received better responsiveness and smoother interface operation.

🛡️ 4. Security: Smart Passwords and Child Safety

• Agent-based password repair: The updated Apple Passwords app has a standalone AI agent that automatically finds, fixes, and regenerates compromised or weak user passwords.

• Ultimate parental controls: Safari now has Ask to Browse, so kids will need to ask their parents to access new sites. Communication Safety now not only blurs out nudity, but also automatically blocks gore content in Messages and FaceTime.

📱 5. Compatibility: Who will get iOS 27?

Apple has maintained a very wide range of device support. iOS 27 will be available on all smartphones that supported iOS 26:

• The entire iPhone 11 line and newer;

• iPhone SE (2nd generation and later).

Important: The full operation of local Siri AI models will require a powerful NPU, so AI features will be available on the iPhone 15 Pro / 15 Pro Max, the iPhone 16 line, and the upcoming iPhone 17.

HiTech Expert Take

For HiTech Expert, we summarize: iOS 27 is the official confirmation that in 2026 Big Tech has finally moved from words to action in building agent-based AI. Apple's move to integrate Google Gemini models directly into the Siri AI core is a strong pragmatic decision. Instead of trying to catch up with the market on its own, Apple has taken the best of Google's search infrastructure and packaged it in its own proprietary, secure and aesthetic Liquid Glass outline.

Accelerating software launch by 30% and introducing AI page monitoring in Safari prove that the operating system is becoming proactive. We received a release that not only changes the design of icons, but also fundamentally changes the patterns of interaction with the gadget.