10 Siri AI Life Hacks Every User Should Know
If you’re like me, you’ve probably ignored most of Siri’s functionality for years. Sure, she’s great for setting timers, making calls, and sending messages. But that’s pretty much it—Apple’s promise of an always-on digital assistant hasn’t been fulfilled.
But with the recent launch of Siri AI, things have finally changed. Fifteen years after the app’s debut on the iPhone 4S and four years after the release of ChatGPT, Apple has invested time in building its own private Apple Foundation models (with minimal assistance from Google) that run both on the device itself and on Apple servers, providing quick answers to your queries. Siri AI responses are short, concise, and genuinely helpful. However, conversational interaction isn’t the only innovation Siri AI offers. In fact, dig deeper and you’ll find Siri AI features built into the entire iOS and macOS ecosystem. Here’s how to get the most out of Apple’s new, improved digital assistant.
Use the Silent Reply feature to have Siri always respond silently.
Siri’s AI is already set up for brevity. Compared to Gemini or Claude, its responses are short and to the point. However, if you ask a question verbally, it also responds verbally. Personally, I prefer to quickly read Siri’s responses. If you’re like me, you can enable a hidden setting that ensures Siri always responds silently, whether you type or speak. Go to Settings > Siri > Responses and select “Silent Reply.”
Make Siri AI sound more natural with Expressive Voice.
On the other hand, if you prefer listening to Siri’s responses, it’s worth spending some time fine-tuning them. If you have an iPhone less than two years old, you can use Siri’s more expressive voice. Siri AI has a feature called “Expressive Voice,” which works on iPhone 17 Pro and later, iPhone Air, and Mac computers with an M3 processor or higher (at least 12GB of RAM).
To find this feature, go to Settings > Siri > Voice . Here, you can change the tempo to make Siri sound faster or slower. The main feature is the “Expressiveness” slider; with it, you can make Siri’s voice brighter and more energetic, rather than monotonous. There are also several color-coded voice options at the top.
Use visual intelligence to let Siri take action on any element on your screen.
Visual intelligence is deeply integrated into iOS 27 and macOS 27, turning any object on your screen into a source for Siri’s artificial intelligence. It can search for information on any object on the screen and even perform actions based on the information it finds. On iPhone, you can select any text, press and hold, and then choose “Ask Siri.” On Mac, “Ask Siri” is the first item in the right-click context menu. Select a file, select the text, and initiate a conversation with Siri.
But that’s not all. Just open Siri AI on your iPhone or Mac and start asking questions about what you see on the screen. If you see a photo of a cafe on Instagram, ask where it is, or ask Siri to open it in Maps. If you’re watching a scene from a movie or TV show, ask Siri where it’s from.
Use Apple’s Cloud Photos Cleanup feature to securely remove objects from your photos.
The “Cleanup” feature was part of Apple Intelligence in iOS 18, but it didn’t work very well. It used built-in models to remove objects, and the results were unsatisfactory. Now that Apple uses its own Apple Foundation models in a private cloud, it can securely process images on its servers, and the cleaning process has become much better. It now very reliably removes objects from photos and even accounts for shadows. However, to use this feature, you must select the “High Quality” mode (instead of the default automatic mode).
Click the “Edit” button on the photo, go to “Tools” > “Cleanup,” and select “High Quality” at the top. Now brush or tap the object you want to remove. Then click “Cleanup” and wait a moment for Apple’s servers to complete the process. Click “Done” to save your changes.
Add multiple events to the Calendar app at once using Siri’s visual intelligence.
One of the most tedious parts of using the Calendar app is manually entering numerous events from a complex schedule, such as your child’s soccer practice schedule for the entire season or your college’s weekly lecture schedule. With Visual Intelligence in iOS 27, this has become a no-brainer: you can point your iPhone’s camera at the schedule or take a screenshot, then tap the “Add to Calendar” button. Siri will recognize all the events, and you’ll have the option to add them to your calendar individually or all at once.
Use Mail app integration to archive, sort, and manage your emails.
Siri AI integration with the Mail app is a real godsend. After your iPhone or Mac has finished indexing local data from the Mail app, you can use Siri AI to sort and manage emails without even opening the app. In my tests, this worked very well, especially because Siri AI understands the context of an email. This means you don’t have to remember precise details about the sender or subject. You can simply ask something like, “Find all my flight emails from last week and send them to my accountant.” You can also ask it to do things for you. For example, you could say, “Archive all emails from Walmart from last month,” and it will offer you an option to do this with the click of a button.
Use this hidden setting to automatically send messages without confirmation.
As you start using the new Siri AI more often, you’ll notice it asks for confirmation too often. This is useful for actions like deleting emails, but less so for sending messages. There’s a hidden setting that eliminates this extra step when sending messages via Siri. Go to Settings > Siri > Replies and turn on “Automatically Send Messages.”
Use the Camera Control gesture to control Siri AI camera features.
Since the Siri AI update in iOS 27, I’ve been using the camera controls a lot, and you should too. Simply press and hold the camera button to launch Siri mode in the camera. Point the camera at the object you want to learn more about and tap the large Siri icon. After a second or two, Siri’s response will appear at the top of the screen, along with appropriate actions based on what you’re looking at. This feature is really useful, and if you don’t like using the camera controls (or don’t have access to them on your iPhone), you can also add a Siri AI shortcut to your Lock screen, Control Center, or Actions button.
Ask Siri AI to create custom shortcuts for you.
While Shortcuts has always been one of Apple’s most powerful features, it’s also one of the most complex to use. Creating automations requires setting up steps, selecting variables, thinking through the timeline, and much more. With Siri AI, Apple is trying to make this task easier. And when it comes to the simple things needed by the average iPhone user, it works.
For example, you can open Shortcuts, create a new shortcut, and use the “Describe Shortcut” feature to describe the shortcut you want to create in natural language. You could ask Siri to create a daily morning shortcut that shows you the weather, upcoming calendar events, and your to-do list. You could also ask her to create a shortcut that batch-processes images and creates new notes using a pre-made template.
Chat with ChatGPT using this hidden gesture.
Although Apple now uses Apple Foundation’s own models for the new Siri AI, ChatGPT isn’t technically gone. If you have a complex question or Siri’s AI response isn’t helpful, you can still invoke ChatGPT from the Siri AI app (no need to open the ChatGPT app). Tap the text field in the Siri app, select “Ask,” and then switch to the ChatGPT service. Siri’s AI is quite intelligent in its routing, so if ChatGPT can’t answer, it will redirect you back to Siri’s own AI models.