/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25698444/DSC08567_processed_2.jpg?w=696&resize=696,0&ssl=1 "The gigantic update to Siri ChatGPT is here, for better or for worse")
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The official launch of Apple Intelligence is less than a week away, but it’s another wave of AI updates that will make Siri much more useful.
The upcoming iOS 18.2 update – now available in developer beta – will make your phone much smarter by adding visual intelligence and the ability to forward Siri requests to ChatGPT. On phones that support Apple Intelligence, Siri won’t just be a “let me Google it” machine; now it’s a “let me ChatGPT for you” machine with everything that entails: the good, the bad, and everything in between.
By default, Siri will ask for confirmation every time it wants to forward a request to ChatGPT. This makes sense and I thought I preferred this behavior. But after spending an afternoon using it, I realized I just wanted to get ChatGPT’s response faster and turned it off. Siri still handles basic questions on its own and doesn’t relay questions like “When are the US elections?” luckily to ChatGPT. And it will still be something for you if it is the best way to find the answer.
But more complicated things go to ChatGPT, which means Siri can handle a lot more things than I’m used to. Ask: “What cocktails can I make with whiskey and lemon juice?” and you will receive a compact list of options with descriptions. The senior Siri will just show you a snippet of a Google search.
AI chatbots like ChatGPT and Google Gemini regularly make mistakes and make things up. But I’ve started using them more and more as a starting point when I need facilitate with something and basically have no idea. I actually downloaded Gemini (via the Google iOS app) on the iPhone 16 I utilize because I got bored of opening it in the browser. As long as you don’t blindly trust what the AI tells you, this is a useful way to point you in the right direction.
Apple has implemented good privacy protections when using ChatGPT. OpenAI “is committed to processing your request solely for the purpose of fulfilling it and does not store your request or any responses you provide,” Apple states. This information will also not be used to train artificial intelligence models. If you log in to your OpenAI account, your requests will be saved in your ChatGPT history and all OpenAI terms will apply. But you don’t need an OpenAI account at all if you don’t want one or don’t have one. I appreciate it.
The beloved, iOS-compatible Google Lens
iPhone 16 owners will also have another way to leverage ChatGPT’s cleverness: visual intelligence, which is also enabled in version 18.2. It can be accessed by holding down the camera control button, which displays a live view of the camera. Once you’ve taken a photo, you can analyze it with ChatGPT or utilize Google Image Search to find similar results on the web. This is the glorious Google Lens on iOS, and it’s high time iPhones had something like this built-in. Siri has previously been able to search for plants, landmarks, and the like, but nothing as wide-ranging as this.
Visual intelligence is pretty good – for the most part. It was Very complimentary descriptions of various areas in my home, calling my hall “cozy” and “well-organized” and our whiskey collection “impressive.” I was given a decent list of cocktails to make based on a photo of my home bar, and with the image of the problem, I started heading in the right direction for home repair. As long as you utilize the answer as a starting point, AI is quite useful for these types of low-stakes questions.
However, there are all the familiar pitfalls of AI chatbots, which Apple warns about during every interaction with ChatGPT. I asked for an explanation of the joke in Garfield comic book to me, and he completely made up details that weren’t in it (though honestly, the joke he came up with was funnier than the actual source material). I asked him about the books on my shelf and some titles came to mind that definitely weren’t on my shelf.
I would also like ChatGPT to allow you to check its performance in the same way that Gemini does. Google’s AI-powered chatbot provides obvious links to articles on the topics it references, so you know where to read more and see exactly what the AI is telling you. ChatGPT mentions in the fine print the number of sources it pulled from to find the answer for Siri, and you have to click to see the links to these articles.
Still, it’s a step forward in terms of things you can expect from Siri. And that’s what people won’t see when they download Apple Intelligence; in iOS 18.1, Siri gets a modern look with a glowing frame, a modern text interface, and better language understanding. But it’s basically the same senior Siri.
That’s starting to change in version 18.2, and Apple’s AI ambitions are even greater than “go and ask ChatGPT.” Eventually, Siri will be able to take actions for you in apps – something like the promise of artificial intelligence on our phones. But these kinds of updates won’t likely come until 2025.
Of all the Apple Intelligence features I’ve used so far, ChatGPT integration seems to be the one I’ll utilize the most; in the same way that Gemini tells me to utilize Google Assistant more often for more things. It’s not always right, but as a tool to facilitate me find the right answer it’s quite clever.
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