00:00Hey guys, welcome back to Setup Essentials, the Tom's Guide series dedicated to helping you get
00:05the absolute most out of your tech. Up until recently, Siri felt less like a functional
00:09assistant and more like a glorified kitchen timer. But with iOS 27, Apple has finally delivered Siri
00:16AI and it actually feels intelligent. Before we look at what Siri AI can do, I have a quick
00:22hardware warning. While basic Siri AI will run on an iPhone 15 Pro with 8GB of RAM, Apple's most
00:29advanced on-device features strictly require the newer 12GB RAM models like the iPhone 17 Pro or
00:35iPhone 17 Air series. For this video, I'm testing Siri AI on the iOS 27 developer beta using the
00:42iPhone 17 Pro. Now, depending on when you watch this video, the public beta may be out. Either way,
00:49you'll need a version of iOS 27. I'll make it easy and leave a download how to article in the
00:53description. If your phone's loaded up, let's jump into the essential Siri AI features I think you
00:58should try first. Let's start with the Siri app. For 15 years, Siri has just been a transient
01:05overlay, but now say hello to the dedicated Siri app. This acts as a permanent hub for all your
01:11interactions. It organizes your past multi-turn conversation logs pretty much identically to
01:16chat GPT. For example, I asked Siri to create a pros and cons list for Carlos test driving. I can
01:23jump
01:23right back into that workspace when I'm ready to write my review, continuing the conversation seamlessly.
01:29Next up is Photo Library Deep Search. Photo Library Deep Search completely changes how you interact
01:34with your memories. You don't need to remember dates or locations anymore. You can just describe
01:39visual details. Watch this. Hey Siri, find that photo of me holding a wine glass at a winery.
01:47And just like that, Siri understands the context and pulls it up.
01:52Moving on to on-screen contextual awareness. Siri can finally see what you're looking at in real time.
01:58For example, I want to copy a set of hashtags or captions from a post to use on my own.
02:03I don't
02:04have to manually highlight the text anymore. I just summon Siri and say, copy the caption in this post.
02:11Here is the caption from the post. Boom. It copied everything. I can even do this on webpages like
02:17the TomSky.com homepage. I can say, copy the captions under this first post.
02:24Here is the text from the first post. And just like that, Siri does the heavy lifting.
02:30Siri AI can also anticipate your next move by giving you intelligent actions right on your phone. When
02:36you're inside a messages thread and a friend reminds you to do something, Siri reads the room and offers
02:40a shortcut to create a reminder or calendar event right there. This also applies to your emails with
02:45a feature called smart calendar invites. If you open up a disorganized email in Apple's mail app or
02:50Gmail, you can just tell Siri, add this to my calendar. Siri looks through the text, extracts the
02:58exact time, date, and details, and builds the invite for you seamlessly in your native calendar app.
03:04In addition to contextual awareness on your screen or in your apps, Siri's finally getting eyes. By
03:10combining Siri AI with the updated camera app, we get true visual intelligence natively on iPhone.
03:16If you see something in the real world and have no idea what it is, you just point your lens
03:20at it in
03:20Siri mode. Whether you're trying to figure out if a weed in your backyard is toxic to your pets,
03:25trying to look up the exact fuel requirements for a rental car, want more information on the book in
03:29front of you, Siri can see what your camera sees and answer appropriately. But what happens when you
03:35start to pull all these features together? Finally, we have reached the holy grail of this entire iOS
03:40update, multi-step cross-app actions. Up until now, Siri could only do one isolated task at a time. Now,
03:48Siri AI can act as an actual fluid agent across your entire phone. For instance, if I forgot about an
03:53event
03:53invitation buried deep in my inbox, I can just ask Siri to look it up and log it into my
03:58schedule,
03:59and then also show me a preview of the map directions. Can you find that email from Hyundai
04:04about the event today and add it to my calendar and also give me driving directions to MetLife?
04:15I've added the FIFA 2026 World Cup game with Hyundai to your calendar for today,
04:20from 1230 p.m. to 8 p.m. Can you show me those driving directions now?
04:27Getting driving directions to New York, New Jersey Stadium.
04:35As of the time I'm filming this video, this cross-app fluidity is strictly limited to your
04:39iPhone's native apps. Third-party developers are working on support, and once it's fully figured out,
04:45hopefully it'll work like the task automation features I've tested with Google Gemini
04:49on the Galaxy S26, which can already interact with third-party apps to do things like order Dunkin'
04:55Donuts via DoorDash completely on your behalf. It's still the early days for an iOS 27 beta,
05:02and Apple understandably has some bugs to iron out, but Siri is finally becoming the personal
05:07system we were promised over a decade ago. Which of these features are you planning to test out first?
05:12Let me know your thoughts in the comments below, hit that like button if this walkthrough will help you
05:16out, and make sure to subscribe to the channel for more setup essentials. I'm Jon V, and I'll see you
05:21in my next video.
05:33I'll see you in the next video.
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