Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference 2026 (WWDC) starts on June 8, 2026. Apple's tagline this time is "Coming bright up", and the company has already confirmed that the event will showcase "AI advancements". Apple is finally ready to show something after two years of waiting, beyond demos.
This year's keynote will be a bigger deal than last year's Liquid Glass redesign as the Gemini-powered Siri overhaul is finally happening. iOS 27 will be the testing ground for almost every AI feature Apple has been wanting to ship since 2024. On that note, here is a complete rundown of what to expect at WWDC 2026.
1. Gemini-Powered Siri
The new Siri is finally set to arrive at WWDC 2026 and it's going to be a complete overhaul. The project is reportedly known as "Campo" internally. Apple is using a custom Gemini AI model built in collaboration with Google. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman has confirmed that the new Siri will work just like Claude, ChatGPT or Gemini. It can answer general knowledge questions, summarise the web, generate content and analyse uploaded files.
Apple is reportedly paying Google around $1 billion per year for access to a custom Gemini model under a multi-year contract. Google Cloud chief Thomas Kurian has publicly confirmed that the Foundation Model powering the new Siri runs on Google Cloud and uses Gemini's LLMs under the hood. That said, Apple won't put any "Google" branding on Siri itself.
As for the underlying hardware, The Information has reported that heavy tasks will run on Nvidia's chips inside Google's servers. Apple's own Private Cloud Compute (PCC) server was found too slow during testing. That said, to keep things private, Apple is using Nvidia's confidential computing tech, which encrypts data while it's being processed.
2. Standalone Siri App with Chat History
For the first time, Siri is getting a dedicated app on the home screen just like ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini. According to Bloomberg's renders, the new Siri app has a dark interface by default with an "Ask Siri" text field at the bottom. There is also a microphone icon to switch to voice mode and a paperclip icon to add images and files.
The new Siri app will support both text and voice conversations, with chat bubbles that look like iMessage threads. There will be options to start new chats, pin favourite conversations, search past chats and use suggested prompts when you begin a new chat. Your conversations will also sync across devices via iCloud.
Apple is also testing auto-delete chat history option for protecting user privacy. Users can set a retention period between 30 days, a year or forever. The Siri app's design is expected to include a new animated icon when you trigger it. In addition, there is testing underway for Siri integrated into the Dynamic Island with a glowing icon and a "searching" label while the request is being processed.
That said, Gurman recently reported that Apple may launch the new Siri with a "beta" label at WWDC 2026. After all the delays since Apple Intelligence's 2024 debut, Apple is apparently still not confident enough to ship it as a fully complete product. Users will likely get a toggle to opt into the new "Siri beta" or keep using the classic version. There may even be a waitlist to try the new features similar to the original Apple Intelligence rollout in 2024.
3. Search or Ask: Siri's New System-Wide Search Bar
Mark Gurman's latest report revealed all the changes coming to the new Siri and iOS 27 ahead of WWDC 2026. iOS 27 is adding a new "Search or Ask" field that you can trigger by swiping down from the top centre of the screen, anywhere in the system UI. You can type your queries and it replaces the current method of double-tapping the bottom edge of the screen to bring up Type to Siri.
Interestingly, since the top-centre swipe is now assigned to Search or Ask, the Notification Centre has shifted to a swipe down gesture from the top-left corner instead.
Siri is also being deeply integrated into the Dynamic Island. When you trigger Siri with the wake word or by holding the power button, you will no longer see the full-screen colourful glow animation. Instead, you get a redesigned Siri animation inside the Dynamic Island and the results appear as a rich text card. If you want to keep going, you can swipe down further to open the full chatbot conversation inside the Siri app.
These rich text cards can show all kinds of things, from people, places and news headlines to weather forecasts and sports scores. They can also show results from your own data like notes, messages, emails, contacts, calendar appointments and reminders. On top of that, Siri is utilising Apple's new AI-powered web search, which is the company's answer to tools like Perplexity.
4. Siri Extensions and a Marketplace
At WWDC 2026, Apple is expected to announce Siri extensions and a marketplace. Apple plans to let users integrate rival AI chatbots into Siri like Claude, Gemini and OpenAI through a new "Extensions" feature in iOS 27. The settings will live under the Apple Intelligence and Siri section of the Settings app. Apple will add a dedicated Extensions section to the App Store that acts as a marketplace for third-party AI integrations.
Apart from Siri, iOS 27 is going to support multiple AI models for the rest of Apple Intelligence features including Writing Tools, Image Playground, etc. So if you don't like the default Gemini-powered Siri or its writing suggestions, you will be able to choose Claude or ChatGPT for those tasks too. This is a huge shift from Apple as the company has historically locked users into its own services.
5. Multi-Step Siri Commands and On-Screen Awareness
The Apple Intelligence Siri features that were originally promised for iOS 18 are finally coming with iOS 27. At WWDC 2026, Apple is expected to showcase the new Siri which will be able to handle multi-step requests in a single query. You would be able to say something like "open navigation to home and text my ETA to my wife". It will work as one continuous workflow instead of three separate commands.
On top of that, personal context will allow Siri to remember your emails, messages, files and photos to show information when you ask for vague things. For instance, you can say, "where is the recipe Diana sent me?" or "find the email where Jake mentioned ice skating". For the first time, you will be able to ask Siri when you are free for appointments before scheduling something and it can show overlapping events too.
On-screen awareness will allow Siri to see what is on your display and take action. If someone texts you an address, you can just ask Siri to add it to their contact card. Apple is also adding an "Ask Siri" option that pops up when you highlight text anywhere in iOS 27. It will appear next to copy, paste and share so you can send the text to Siri for a quick follow-up question.
Note that all of this requires Apple Intelligence, which means you need at least an iPhone 15 Pro or newer with at least 8GB of RAM. You can check out our list of eligible Apple Intelligence devices.
6. New 'Siri' Mode in the Camera App
Currently, you have to long-press the Camera Control button to launch Visual Intelligence and most iPhone users don't even know that it exists. With iOS 27, Apple is adding a dedicated Siri mode to the Camera app along with Photo, Video, Portrait and Panorama. The shutter button will display the Apple Intelligence logo when active.
In fact, this new Siri mode is expected to fully replace the current Visual Intelligence experience. Apple is also reportedly making the Camera app a lot more customisable. It will let you rearrange controls like flash, exposure, timer, resolution and photo styles using movable widgets.
In addition, Visual Intelligence is expected to get new features including nutrition label scanning that logs food information directly into the Health app. It can also do business card scanning that adds contact details to the Contacts app. What is interesting is that if you capture a physical ticket, it adds event details into the Wallet app.
Apart from that, iOS 27 is also expected to bring context-aware visual capabilities to Siri. Basically, you can point your iPhone camera at something and ask Siri a question about it. Gurman's latest report reveals that a photo taken in Siri mode can be handed to a third-party AI agent for analysis or users can directly use Google reverse image search in the same flow. To sum up, you will be able to use Siri hands-free for visual intelligence and ask multi-step questions.
7. AI Photo Editing Tools and Image Playground Improvements
The Photos app on iOS 27 is getting a new Apple Intelligence Tools section in the editing UI. It will have three new options including Extend, Enhance and Reframe. Extend generates image beyond the original frame, Enhance automatically tweaks colour and lighting and Reframe lets you change the perspective of photos after they have been captured.
Note that Reframe is mainly for spatial 3D photos, which is Apple's image format for the Vision Pro. Apart from that, the Clean Up tool is getting major improvements and now, it should be able to remove objects properly. Apple is also testing natural language photo editing, which lets you ask for specific edits like cropping or colour changes using voice or text. That said, it may not arrive with the first iOS 27 release.
Moreover, Image Playground and Genmoji might get a major visual upgrade at WWDC 2026. Image Playground is currently one of the worst image generators on the market and even Genmoji has not been that great. Gurman now reports that Apple's models have been "significantly improved" and the quality is getting a "big boost" this year.
The Image Playground app itself has been fully redesigned and there is a "+" button to start a new image and a "describe a change" option to refine the image.
Apple is also adding support for third-party image models inside Image Playground. Right now, the app only sends external requests to ChatGPT's image generator, but iOS 27 will likely add Google's Nano Banana models and other competing models. And on the Genmoji side, you will get automatic suggestions based on what is in your Photos library.
8. iPhone Fold-Ready iOS
Apple's first-ever foldable iPhone is likely launching in September 2026 and iOS 27 is being reworked for the new form factor. The iPhone Fold is rumoured to feature a 5.5-inch outer display and a 7.8-inch inner display and it has an iPad-like 4:3 aspect ratio. When unfolded, iOS 27 will switch to an iPad-style layout that supports side-by-side multitasking with two apps and sidebars on the left for apps.
Note that the iPhone Fold will run iOS 27 and not iPadOS 27 so it will not support iPad apps. Apple is providing developers with tools to easily adapt their apps to the new larger-screen layout. The iPhone Fold will simply fall back to the standard iOS layout when it's closed.
While Apple is unlikely to show off iPhone Fold features at WWDC 2026, developer tools and APIs for adapting apps to the larger layout might be released along with the iOS 27 beta. It will give developers a few months of head start before the foldable goes on sale.
9. AI-Powered Keyboard and Shortcuts
At WWDC 2026, Apple is set to bring a Grammarly-like keyboard upgrade with iOS 27 that goes beyond simple typo correction. Instead of just fixing spelling errors, the new keyboard will suggest alternative words as you type, similar to how Grammarly helps you with better phrasing. Apple is reportedly still testing the new AI-powered keyboard, so it may not make the final cut.
Moreover, Apple is bringing a system-wide grammar checker with iOS 27. There is also a separate "Write with Siri" feature, which can be accessed via a new button on the keyboard. And when the on-screen keyboard appears, you will notice a new animation.
Apart from that, the Shortcuts app is getting much smarter. iOS 27 will let you describe in plain English what the shortcut needs to do and Apple Intelligence will build it for you. So instead of dragging and dropping action blocks like a programmer, you can just say "every morning, get my calendar events and read them out loud" and Shortcuts will create the workflow for you.
10. iOS 27 is Apple's 'Snow Leopard' Moment
Apart from delivering AI features, Apple is working to improve performance and stability with iOS 27. Internally, Apple has described iOS 27 as a 'Snow Leopard' release, which is a reference to the 2009 macOS update that completely focused on stability and efficiency. The plan is to clean up the iOS codebase, remove outdated code and rewrite some existing features to be more efficient.
It might result in faster app launches, smoother animations and battery life improvements. Gurman has said that there are three focus areas for iOS 27: removal of legacy code, interface tweaks for stability and performance optimisations to older apps. Since iOS 26 was quite buggy, this is the most important change Apple is making under the hood.
Smaller Tweaks Across iOS
While Apple is not planning to make any major changes to the Liquid Glass design language, the company is testing a system-wide opacity slider. It may let you adjust the look of Liquid Glass across the entire UI. Note that iOS 26.2 already added this slider for the Lock Screen clock, but iOS 27 may extend it to the whole OS.
Apart from that, iOS 27 may get AI-generated wallpapers, which will let you create personalised backgrounds straight from text prompts on your iPhone. Next, the iPhone is getting proper undo and redo buttons for home screen customisation. If you accidentally delete a widget or mess up your layout, you can just tap a button to reverse it right away.
Next, Safari is getting smarter too with a new "Organize Tabs" feature that automatically groups your open tabs into topics like shopping, travel, work and more. It's also getting a new start page with favourites, bookmarks, a reading list and your browsing history in one place.
Moreover, iOS 27 is bringing a new bill-splitting feature built into the Wallet and Messages apps. You can take a photo of a receipt, assign individual items to your friends and send a request for their share. There is also a new "Create a Pass" feature that lets you build and customise your own digital tickets and gift cards. It's pretty handy in situations when an app gives you a QR code but does not support the Wallet app.
Besides that, the AirPods settings UI is getting a revamp in iOS 27. Apple has been adding new AirPods features onto the same settings for years. The new design will be better organised and more streamlined. That said, it will still live inside the Settings app and there will be no standalone AirPods app. Finally, Apple might add support for third-party protocols like Google Cast along with AirPlay.
What Else to Expect at WWDC 2026?
At WWDC, Apple mostly showcases iOS changes and features, but other platforms like macOS, iPadOS and watchOS also get some stage time. First off, macOS 27 is expected to get the same Siri app and there is a strong focus on improving performance.
Along with that, macOS 27 will get the same Apple Intelligence photo tools. It's also getting a minor redesign to fix the Liquid Glass shadow and transparency issues that made some text harder to read. Note that macOS Tahoe is likely the last version of macOS that will run on Intel Macs.
On watchOS 27, the big change is improved heart-rate tracking as Apple has reportedly made the health feature more accurate and consistent. watchOS 27 is also adding a new Modular watch face with a large clock at the top centre.
And the much-hyped Project Mulberry AI health coach is now expected to arrive later with an iOS 27 update rather than at launch. The Mulberry features bring improved blood sugar tracking and users can use the camera to monitor a workout. iPadOS 27 will also get the same Siri chatbot, the same Camera and Photos upgrades and most of the iOS 27 features adapted for the larger screen.
Meanwhile, Apple recently unveiled new Apple Intelligence-powered accessibility features ahead of WWDC 2026. It brings smarter VoiceOver descriptions, AI-powered Magnifier interactions and conversational Voice Control. All of these features are expected to ship as part of the iOS 27 update cycle.
As for developers, the biggest new thing is the Core AI framework, which is going to replace Core ML. It will become the standard way third-party apps integrate AI models into iOS, iPadOS and macOS. And with the AI Extensions marketplace, Apple will be pushing developers to build apps and experiences on top of AI models.
