Apple’s Agentic Leap (and a Sensible Polish): My WWDC 26 Rundown!

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I’ve just emerged from the WWDC26 keynote at Apple Park. It was Tim Cook’s last as CEO; in September, and after 15 years in that role, he’ll make way for John Ternus.

Cook’s departure (although, technically, he isn’t going anywhere — he’ll become Apple’s Executive Chairman) comes at a time of significant change in the world of tech. Most notably, artificial intelligence is gradually becoming the job- and industry-munching behemoth we’ve all been warned about.

We’re now two years on from the initial introduction of Apple Intelligence, and this week’s WWDC keynote suggests that Apple is coming good on its promise to offer deeper AI integration and a long-awaited overhaul of Siri.

I’ve made my feelings about consumer-facing AI tools pretty clear. No one asked for them. Those that have flooded the market and our devices over the last couple of years are, largely, nothing more than show-off features which are the net result of the AI arms race.

Apple’s answer? Siri AI — a supercharged version of its long-standing personal helper, powered in part by Google Gemini. It’s a significant update.

But first, let’s talk about what else they announced this week.

The sensible polish (and my personal favourite)

This wasn’t a big year for any of Apple’s operating systems, individually. Call it a polish, a ‘tick’, or a ‘Snow Leopard’ update — whatever you like, but it has clearly been a year of gentle refinements and some much-needed smaller feature additions.

Take Liquid Glass, for instance. Introduced last year, Apple’s new user interface layer, which added translucency and rippling glass effects across all operating systems, was both praised and criticised. No wonder, then, that Apple is adding a Liquid Glass intensity slider so you can adjust it to your preference.

macOS (whose new moniker will be Golden Gate) has had a nice little design tidy-up across the board, with uniform toolbars, full-height sidebars, the return of coloured sidebar icons, and consistent corners. I appreciate that sounds like a random collection of designery words, but I suspect it will simply result in a ‘new car smell’ once you upgrade to Golden Gate later this year. As I’ve often said, I’m not sure how Apple could make macOS any better, so this gets my vote.

It isn’t just a visual polish that Apple has focused on this year, though. Speed is clearly on their minds, with promises of up to 30% increases in app opening speeds, 70% faster photo loads, and 80% swifter AirDrop transfers. I like the sound of the latter in particular; AirDrop speeds have always been pretty inconsistent for me. On that note, we can also expect smarter WiFi and cellular switching, and clearer indicators in the Messages app when sends are taking longer than usual.

Once again, sensible polishes.

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Apple has also re-architected the search index, which sits behind Spotlight, Photos, and Mail across iOS, iPadOS, and macOS. They tell us this will result in more stable, efficient, and comprehensive searches for our stuff. On first install, all of your existing content is reindexed, and from then on, new content is indexed almost instantly.

There’s more, of course, and I’ll be digging into all of it over the coming weeks and months, but one of the biggest updates for me was the addition of an EQ control for AirPods. It looks like a relatively simple low, mids, and highs affair, but it’s a significant step up on what we have at the moment (which, for as long as I can remember, extends as far as a bunch of preset EQ treatments).

The age of agentic Siri

Back in January, Apple and Google jointly announced that they would be working together on an upcoming update to Siri. The multi-year contract would enable Apple to use the power of Google’s Gemini AI model.

Fast-forward to June, and that partnership is starting to make itself known by way of the aforementioned new Siri, called (and I didn’t see this coming) Siri AI.

What’s interesting is that Apple doesn’t appear to have simply ‘plugged’ Gemini into the back end of Siri for what would essentially be a reskin of Google’s offering. This is, by all accounts, a combination of Google’s AI powerhouse and Apple’s in-house Foundation Models that were first mentioned in 2025.

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Siri AI uses a combination of Gemini, on-device AI smarts, and Apple’s Private Cloud Compute to deliver agentic AI. And if you’re not sure what that is (it’s still a term that’s gradually — read: slowly — making its way into the national consciousness), it’s simply an iteration of AI that can perform tasks for you. And it can be rather powerful.

For instance, Siri AI is aware of what’s on your screen and can undertake specific tasks for you, with that information to hand. So, if you happen to scroll across a beautiful vista on your Instagram feed and want to know what it is, just ask Siri, and it’ll know what you’re referring to.

In-depth look: Siri in iOS 27

Then, we have the contextually aware stuff we first had a glimpse of at WWDC 2025. Let’s say you’re reviewing a bunch of quotes for a new fence and you know that your brother had recommended one in particular, but you can’t remember when or via what means. All you have to do now is ask the new Siri (in natural language) and, in theory, it’ll find the answer for you by scouring your emails and messages for that note from your brother.

Siri AI also promises to be more conversational, and you can tune it to your liking in terms of tone, pace, and expressiveness. Oh, and there’s a dedicated Siri app coming, too.

By all accounts, this is a big update, and one we’ve been expecting for quite some time. It just leaves one big question for yours truly.

Final thought (for now)

As I write, it’s still Monday. The keynote finished earlier and, as of yet, I’m yet to get my hands on this new stuff from Apple. I’ll be learning more over the coming days while in California, and I’ll certainly be digging into the beta versions over the next few weeks.

This wasn’t a huge year for each Apple operating system individually, but collectively, it’s significant because the glue that holds them together is being fully injected with a brand-new form of artificial intelligence.

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The question for me is: has Apple successfully built a native AI platform that surfaces itself when appropriate and without any form of buy-in on the user’s part? This is essential. As mentioned earlier, no one asked for all of this AI stuff. Many fear it. For services like Siri AI to proliferate, they have to be nigh-on invisible, save for the efficiencies they inherently offer users.

That’s a tall order, although it’s perhaps telling that Siri AI is launching in beta later this year, and only in the English language. The EU and China are also excluded from the initial release while Apple solves whatever it is that’s preventing the rollout in those regions. They’re taking their time. Still. And I’m absolutely ok with that.