These IPhones Will Receive a Major Camera Upgrade Using Artificial Intelligence.
Your iPhone’s camera is about to get smarter. During the WWDC 2026 keynote , Apple announced the direct integration of Siri’s visual intelligence into the Camera app on your iPhone in iOS 27. This will allow you to point the camera at real-world objects and get more information about them, similar to what Google Lens already does. To use this feature, you’ll need a phone that supports Apple Intelligence , meaning an iPhone 15 Pro or later , including all devices in the iPhone 16 and iPhone 17 families.
The company also announced that Visual Intelligence will be coming to Mac for the first time with macOS 27. It will allow you to highlight details in an image, for example, to identify a landmark and get more information about it, or to find out where to buy a particular item of clothing. Again, you’ll need a Mac that supports Apple Intelligence, such as an M-series laptop or iMac .
Visual intelligence is getting a ton of updates on iPhone and iPad.
In iOS 27, visual intelligence will also receive several helpful updates as part of the Siri update coming later this year . Apple will integrate Siri directly into the Camera app on your iPhone, allowing you to point the camera at an object and ask Siri to help you find useful information about it. This feature will be available as a new “Siri mode” in the Camera app, currently located between Photo and Portrait modes. You’ll also be able to ask clarifying questions and review previously asked questions in the new Siri app included with iOS 27, so these queries aren’t lost after you close the Camera app, the company announced.
Siri Mode will also suggest appropriate actions based on what you point the camera at. Apple’s demos showed Siri recognizing a restaurant bill and making it easy to split the bill between friends. On iPad, visual analysis is integrated into the screenshot process, so you can use it to analyze the screen content every time you take a photo.
It’s also worth noting ( at least for a while ) that the visual intelligence feature will be coming to visionOS, the operating system for Apple’s Vision headsets.
How Visual Intelligence Works in macOS 27 Golden Gate
Explaining how Visual Intelligence will work on the Mac in macOS 27 (dubbed “Golden Gate”), Apple stated that you’ll be able to select any portion of the screen to use Visual Intelligence. In theory, this sounds like a great implementation, as that’s how I typically clip and save images I’m interested in—I use a keyboard shortcut to clip a portion of the screen and add it to a reverse image search. Apple is integrating a similar workflow into macOS 27.
After you use the keyboard shortcut to invoke Visual Intelligence, several options will appear next to the image. You can ask Siri to tell you more, press the button to perform a reverse image search, or use the option to provide more contextual information about the object in question. For example, if you select an image of a pizza, macOS 27 will show you the option to find out the nutritional information for that specific type of pizza.
The visual intelligence feature on Mac should also be able to recognize music festival posters and add multiple events to your calendar at once. At the time of writing, this feature is only available on Mac computers with an English interface.