Apple Relaunches Siri as "Siri AI," Powered by Google Gemini: Features, Price & India Launch

On Monday, June 8, 2026, Apple did something many thought it never would. At its annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC 2026) at Apple Park in Cupertino, the company rebuilt Siri from the ground up, rebranded it as "Siri AI," and confirmed the part that made headlines around the world: the new assistant is powered by a custom version of Google's Gemini artificial intelligence model.

For a company that spent a decade insisting it could build AI entirely on its own terms, paying its biggest rival to power its flagship feature is a remarkable admission — and a clear signal that the assistant war has entered a new phase. After nearly two years of delays and criticism over a Siri upgrade that was promised in 2024 and never fully shipped, Apple finally delivered.

Here is a complete, plain-English breakdown of what Siri AI actually does, the billion-dollar deal behind it, when Indian users will get it, and what it all means for the iPhone in your pocket.

What Apple Announced: Siri AI Explained

The headline of WWDC 2026 was a complete overhaul of Apple's AI strategy. Apple introduced a new version of its assistant, "Siri AI," that is designed to be conversational, context-aware, and genuinely useful — described by Apple as its most significant overhaul of Siri in roughly fifteen years.

Unlike the old Siri, which mostly answered single questions or threw you a web link, Siri AI can hold a real back-and-forth conversation, remember the context of earlier prompts, and carry out multi-step tasks across multiple apps on your behalf. The keynote also doubled as a historic moment: it was CEO Tim Cook's final WWDC before he hands the role to hardware chief John Ternus on September 1, 2026.

Apple was unusually direct about its goal — it positioned Siri AI to compete head-on with ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude, a notable shift for a company that historically avoided naming rivals on stage. The new Siri arrives across the entire ecosystem, alongside iOS 27, iPadOS 27, macOS 27 (Golden Gate), watchOS 27, tvOS 27, and visionOS 27.

Siri AI's Biggest New Features

1. A Truly Conversational, Context-Aware Assistant

The core upgrade is conversation. Siri AI can now understand natural, multi-step requests and keep track of what you said earlier in the same exchange. More importantly, it can draw on your personal context — searching across your messages, emails, photos, and other on-device content to actually answer questions like "What time did Priya say the dinner was?"

It can also see what is on your screen, pull up-to-date information from the web, and then take action across apps without you switching between them manually. Apple demonstrated drafting emails, planning events, retrieving details from messages and photos, and executing app tasks in a single flow. A new "Ask Siri" interface lets you interact by both voice and text in a full-screen, chat-style experience.

2. A Dedicated Siri App + Visual Intelligence

For the first time, Siri AI ships as a dedicated standalone app on iPhone, iPad, and Mac, functioning like a conversational chatbot that sits alongside the system-wide assistant. The app keeps a history of your past conversations and syncs them across devices through iCloud, so you can jump back into an earlier query or continue it on another device.

Apple also expanded Visual Intelligence, built directly into the Camera app on iPhone and available on Mac and iPad through screenshots and keyboard shortcuts. You can point your device at an object, text, or scene and get contextual answers or actions. Other Apple Intelligence upgrades include AI-powered reply suggestions in Messages, a Phone app that pulls context mid-call from Mail and Messages, smarter Safari tab organisation, a Passwords app that can auto-update logins for you, and improved Image Playground and Photos editing tools such as "Extend" and spatial reframing.

3. The $1 Billion Google Gemini Deal Behind It

The structural story of WWDC 2026 is the Google partnership. Siri AI runs on a custom Gemini model — reportedly around 1.2 trillion parameters — hosted inside Apple's own data centres through its Private Cloud Compute infrastructure. According to widely reported coverage, the multi-year deal is worth roughly $1 billion per year.

Crucially, Apple delivered Gemini "the Apple way." The Gemini models run on Apple-controlled servers, not Google's, and Apple stressed that its approach stays privacy-focused: on-device processing where possible, and cloud interactions designed so user data is not stored or accessed externally. The result is Google's frontier intelligence wrapped inside Apple's privacy architecture.

What Siri AI Means for India

India is one of Apple's most important growth markets, and the good news for Indian users is that Siri AI is not on the restricted list at launch. While Apple confirmed that Siri AI will not initially be available in Europe or China due to ongoing regulatory processes, India is expected to receive the rollout in line with the global timeline.

There is no separate price for Siri AI — it arrives as part of free software updates (iOS 27 and the matching releases) this fall, the same as previous Apple Intelligence features. The real cost question for Indian buyers is hardware: the most advanced Siri AI and Apple Intelligence features need a recent, more powerful iPhone, even though iOS 27 itself supports devices as far back as the iPhone 11.

For India's large developer and IT community, there is a deeper shift worth noting. Apple made its expanded App Intents framework the primary way Siri talks to third-party apps and issued a formal deprecation notice for the older SiriKit. Indian app makers who want their apps to work smoothly with Siri AI will need to adopt App Intents — making this WWDC one of the most architecturally significant in years.

Launch Date, Beta & Supported Devices

Apple is following its usual rollout pattern. Developer betas for iOS 27 and the other "27" platforms began at the keynote on June 8, with a public beta expected in July and the full, free public release arriving this fall, in sync with the expected iPhone 18 launch. Alongside the AI features, Apple promised real performance gains — apps launching up to 30% faster, photo previews up to 70% faster, and significantly quicker file transfers and AirDrop. If you want Siri AI the moment it lands, the practical advice is simple: keep a recent, capable iPhone, watch for the public beta in July if you like living on the edge, and otherwise wait for the stable autumn release. After two years of broken promises, Apple has finally shipped its AI do-over — and this time, with Google's Gemini doing the heavy lifting, it has a real shot at catching up.