Apple Gives Siri AI Access to Third-Party Apps

Apple will now let Siri AI perform actions across third-party apps. As part of the iOS 27.3 update rolling out on Tuesday, Apple announced developers can integrate Siri AI's new features in all apps, allowing the voice assistant to draw on a user's personal context, process natural language prompts, and use on-screen awareness to complete requests. The update is rolling out as part of a Developer Preview.

App skills and in-app requests

The update also adds a new app skills feature that third-party developers can create to combine several tasks into a single action. In Apple's developer documentation, users won't have to mention an app's name in their request while it's in the foreground, during a Live Activity, or in a conversation with Siri AI about the app. Apple gives an example: a person might request a ride with a ride share app, follow updates to the app's Live Activity while waiting for the ride, then request to move the pickup location to a different address by saying Hey Siri, change my ride pickup to a new address.

Apple's own apps

Apple is bringing Siri AI's expanded capabilities to its own apps as well, including Calendar, Files, Finder, Journal, Mail, Maps, Messages, Music, Notes, Photos, Preview, Reminders, Safari, Shortcuts, and Weather. According to Apple, users can do things like find a coffee shop they visited last week or archive files that haven't been opened in over a year. The company notes that users can ask Siri AI what it can do in each app.

Previous developer access

Apple previously made a smaller set of features available to third-party developers, as noted by 9to5Mac. The new change expands Siri AI's ability to carry out tasks across a wider range of apps.

Sources: The Verge