Apple Intelligence Expands Across the Apple Ecosystem
Apple has unveiled a broad set of new Apple Intelligence features that are deeply integrated across iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, and Vision Pro. The updates aim to improve communication, understanding of onscreen content, and personalized automation while prioritizing user privacy.
Live Translation breaks down language barriers
Live Translation helps users communicate across languages in messages, calls, and in-person conversations. Integrated with Messages, FaceTime, and Phone, it also works with AirPods Pro 3 for real-time in-person translation. On-device processing keeps conversations private, and translations appear as you type, during calls with live captions, or spoken aloud during calls.
- Future language support expansion: Italian, Japanese, Korean, Chinese (Mandarin—simplified and traditional) will be added later this year.
- AirPods-based in-person translation can be activated via a quick gesture, Siri command, or the iPhone Action button, with ANC helping users focus on the translation.
Visual Intelligence enables smarter insight from what you see
Visual Intelligence builds on the Apple Intelligence foundation to help users search, act, and learn from content on their screens. You can:
- Search for items on screen and find similar products online across apps and services (eBay, Etsy, Poshmark, etc.) by selecting an object and initiating a search.
- Ask questions about what’s on the screen using ChatGPT.
- Summarize and translate on-screen text, or add events from a flyer to your calendar with a single tap.
- Use Camera Control, the Action button, and Control Center to access these capabilities.
Genmoji and Image Playground bring more creative image tools
Genmoji now lets you mix emojis with descriptions to create new, personalized avatars. You can adjust expressions and attributes (like hairstyles) to match your contact’s current look.
In Image Playground, you can pair descriptions or photos with ChatGPT to generate unique images. A new Any Style option provides broader creative control, with styles like Watercolor and Oil Painting available through ChatGPT-powered generation.
Workout Buddy delivers personalised motivation
Workout Buddy is a first-of-its-kind fitness experience powered by Apple Intelligence. It analyzes your workout data and history to deliver real-time, spoken motivation, drawing on factors such as heart rate, pace, distance, Activity rings, and milestones. A specialized text-to-speech model uses a voice vibe inspired by Fitness+ trainers to keep the energy right for your session.
- Availability: English language support, with compatibility across Apple Watch (with Bluetooth headphones) and an iPhone nearby; AirPods Pro 3 users can also participate.
- Cross-device support: may be used with AirPods and iPhone to generate personalized insights during workouts.
Shortcuts get smarter with on-device AI
Shortcuts now harness intelligent actions powered by Apple Intelligence, allowing you to automate more tasks. Examples include:
- Summarizing text and extracting key details from documents.
- Comparing transcripts to notes, or pulling data from PDFs into a spreadsheet.
- Creating questions or content-driven automations that feed back into your workflows.
These actions can run on device or via Private Cloud Compute, preserving privacy while delivering richer automation.
Apple Intelligence extends to third-party apps
Developers can access the on-device large language model at the core of Apple Intelligence, enabling new in-app experiences while keeping data private. Examples include:
- Streaks that intelligently categorize tasks.
- CARROT Weather offering conversational weather insights in its distinctive tone.
- Detail: AI Video Editor generating teleprompter scripts from outlines or existing text.
All features work offline, with privacy preserved, and integration is optimized for Swift and guided generation.
Additional capabilities across apps
- Reminders can automatically identify and categorize relevant actions from email, websites, notes, and more.
- Apple Wallet can summarize order-tracking details from merchant or carrier emails, consolidating all orders in one place.
- Messages can host polls, with AI suggesting poll use when appropriate. Backgrounds in Messages let you personalize chats with custom designs and styles from Image Playground.
A strong privacy-focused approach for AI
Apple emphasizes privacy by processing many AI models on-device. When needed, Private Cloud Compute extends capabilities to the cloud without storing or sharing user data. Independent experts can audit the processing on Apple silicon servers to verify privacy assurances.
Availability and language support
These features are available now as a free software update with iOS 26, iPadOS 26, macOS Tahoe 26, watchOS 26, and visionOS 26. Apple Intelligence supports a beta set of languages at launch (including English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean), with broader language support planned over time. Some features may not be available in every region or language. For specifics on feature availability and system requirements, see support.apple.com/en-us/121115.
Note: Visual Intelligence capabilities vary by language and region. Genmoji and Image Playground are available in several languages, and Live Translation with AirPods supports a defined set of languages with ongoing expansion.