Apple advanced its AI ambitions on two fronts this week, releasing the public beta of its overhauled Siri AI assistant and securing regulatory approval to bring Apple Intelligence to China. The iOS 27 public beta marks the first time Apple has made its AI-powered Siri available to a wide audience beyond developers, offering a major test of the redesigned assistant across roughly 2.5 billion active devices. The updated Siri integrates more deeply across the operating system, accessible through voice commands, the Dynamic Island, Spotlight search, and a new standalone app. It draws on device data such as emails, photos, and messages, and is powered by Apple’s Foundation Models, built using Apple Silicon and developed in part through a distillation process involving Google’s Gemini model, with Private Cloud Compute preserving user privacy. The upgraded assistant is also available across iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, CarPlay, AirPods, Apple TV, and Vision Pro, though it remains unavailable in the EU for now.
Separately, China’s Cyberspace Administration approved Apple Intelligence for launch in the country, following a partnership to integrate Alibaba’s Qwen AI model into Apple’s operating systems. A Baidu spokesperson also confirmed the company is working with Apple on China-specific Apple Intelligence features. The approval follows earlier regulatory delays since Apple Intelligence debuted in 2024. Alibaba said Qwen would be integrated into Apple Intelligence experiences, including text and image understanding and generation, though no timeline was given. Apple continues exploring additional partnerships with DeepSeek and ByteDance as it works to expand AI offerings in the Chinese market.
