Apple opens Siri AI to all developers in the iOS 27.3 beta via App Intents
Updated: 1 day ago
Apple has opened Siri AI, the newer and more capable version of Siri, to every registered developer. In a developer news post dated November 3, 2026, the company said that starting with the iOS 27.3, iPadOS 27.3, macOS 27.3 and visionOS 27.3 betas, a Developer Preview lets any app integrate with Siri AI through the App Intents framework. Thousands of developers already ship Siri integrations for tasks such as directions, to-do lists, messaging and audiobooks, and the preview extends that work to Siri AI.
The preview gives third-party apps access to the three capabilities Apple uses to describe Siri AI: personal context understanding, onscreen awareness and natural language requests. Developers can also teach Siri AI to chain several of an app's actions into a single experience when a user makes a complex request, and Siri AI can now surface any entity an app has placed in the Spotlight semantic index, including entities that do not fit one of Apple's existing schemas.
Apple framed the release as an early look. The company said Siri AI features will reach customers in a few months, and that App Store submission for apps built on the new integration opens in the spring. Terms and usage policies for Siri AI experiences have not been published yet; Apple said it will share more details later. Apple is also holding Apple Intelligence Group Labs with its engineers on November 4 and 5 for developers who want to work through the preview.
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WHAT THE SIRI AI DEVELOPER PREVIEW ADDS FOR APPS.
The core change is scope. App Intents has been the route for exposing an app's actions to Siri, Shortcuts and Spotlight since 2022, and Apple's Apple Intelligence developer page now describes it as the framework that connects apps to both Apple Intelligence and Siri AI. With the 27.3 betas, any developer can test how those intents behave inside Siri AI itself, which understands requests in natural language rather than relying on fixed phrases.
Apple's developer documentation describes the building blocks. Intent schemas let people act on an app's content in natural language, and Apple says developers do not need to define specific phrases or change code as Siri's language understanding evolves. Entity schemas contribute app content to the Spotlight semantic index, which Siri AI uses for personal context. A View Annotations API maps views to entities, so a user can refer to something on screen and ask Siri AI to act on it.
The developer news post adds two capabilities that go beyond what the existing schemas cover. The first is multi-step requests: developers can teach Siri AI to combine several actions into one experience, so a single spoken or typed request can trigger a sequence inside the app. The second is broader entity coverage: Siri AI can surface any entity in the Spotlight semantic index, including entities that do not conform to an Apple schema. For apps whose content does not resemble a song, a timer or a playlist, this opens a path into Siri AI that previously did not exist.
Apple is rolling out the same Siri AI features across its own apps, including Calendar, Mail, Maps, Messages, Photos and Shortcuts, which gives developers a reference for how system integrations are expected to behave.
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SIRI AI DEVELOPER PREVIEW AVAILABILITY, LANGUAGES AND LIMITS.
The preview carries the same restrictions that apply to Siri AI for consumers. Testing requires an Apple Intelligence-enabled device set to a supported language, and Apple lists the language and regional limits explicitly in the announcement.
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Item | Status in the Developer Preview |
Operating systems | iOS 27.3, iPadOS 27.3, macOS 27.3 and visionOS 27.3 betas |
Devices | Apple Intelligence-enabled devices only |
Supported languages | English, French, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish |
Coming soon | Traditional Chinese, Norwegian, Turkish, Vietnamese |
European Union | Unavailable on iOS, iPadOS and watchOS |
Age | Not available to users under 13 |
Usage | Daily limits on some server-side features, including Siri AI |
Customer launch | In a few months, per Apple |
App Store submission | Opens in the spring |
Terms and usage policies | Not yet published |
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The European restriction is the one that will shape plans for many teams. Apple says Siri AI is currently unavailable in the EU on iOS, iPadOS and watchOS, and macOS and visionOS do not appear in that list, so developers based in the EU should check which of their test devices can run the preview before planning their work around it. The language list matches the expansion Apple made with iOS 27.2, which we covered in our report on Siri AI arriving in French, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese and Spanish.
The daily usage limit also matters for product design. Apple says some server-side Apple Intelligence features, Siri AI among them, have daily limits, but it has not published the limits. Apps that expect users to rely on Siri AI for frequent multi-step tasks should keep an equivalent path in the app's own interface.
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HOW APP INTENTS CONNECT AN APP TO SIRI AI.
Apple's WWDC26 session "Explore advanced App Intents features for Siri and Apple Intelligence" lays out the APIs behind each Siri AI capability. The table below groups them by what they enable; the names are as Apple presents them in that session.
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Siri AI capability | App Intents tools Apple describes |
Actions and responses | Intents adopting schemas with @AppIntent(schema:), ProvidesDialog, IntentDialog(full:supporting:), ShowsSnippetView |
App content as entities | @AppEntity(schema:), DisplayRepresentation, OwnershipProvidingEntity |
Personal context search | IndexedEntity, CSSearchableIndex.indexAppEntities, IndexedEntityQuery, IntentValueQuery |
Onscreen awareness | NSUserActivity with appEntityIdentifier, view and collection entity annotations |
Learning from app use | IntentDonationManager.shared.donate(intent:result:) |
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Several details from the session affect how an integration behaves. Dialog returned through IntentDialog has a full string and a supporting string: Siri shows the supporting text in its interface and reads the full text on voice-only devices, so the full version has to make sense without the screen. Entities are treated as private by default, and an app can declare through OwnershipProvidingEntity whether an item is shared or public, which determines whether Siri asks for confirmation before acting on it.
For personal context, apps index their entities in the Spotlight semantic index and keep that index current as items are added, changed or deleted. Content that is too large, server-side or fast-changing to index can be exposed through IntentValueQuery instead, which receives a structured search request from the system. Apple also notes that Apple Intelligence learns from interactions that happen through Siri and Shortcuts automatically, but not from taps inside an app's interface; those need to be donated through IntentDonationManager, and the system ignores excessive donations.
Onscreen awareness depends on telling the system which entity is visible. A single primary item can be described through NSUserActivity, one item among many through a view annotation, and lists through a collection annotation that also covers selected rows that have scrolled off screen. UIKit and AppKit apps have equivalent hooks.
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WHAT SIRI AI DEVELOPERS SHOULD DO DURING THE PREVIEW.
For teams that already ship App Intents, the first step is to install the 27.3 betas on an Apple Intelligence-enabled device set to a supported language and check how existing intents and entities behave when invoked through Siri AI. Intents that already adopt Apple schemas should work with natural language requests without new phrase definitions, according to Apple's documentation, but the quality of responses depends on the dialog, display representations and ownership information each intent and entity provides.
Apps that have not indexed their content should look at the Spotlight semantic index first, because personal context and the new ability to surface any indexed entity both depend on it. Apps with content that does not match an existing schema stand to gain the most from the preview, since Siri AI can now reach those entities directly.
Multi-step requests are the newest capability and the least documented outside Apple's sessions. Developers who want Siri AI to combine actions should identify the sequences users already perform by hand, such as finding an item, editing it and sharing it, and expose each step as an intent that can be composed.
Teams should plan their release for the spring window, when App Store submission opens, and watch for the terms and usage policies Apple has said it will publish. Those policies may affect what kinds of actions apps are allowed to automate through Siri AI. Developers selling into China should also follow the separate rollout Apple has announced there, described in our coverage of Apple Intelligence coming to China with iOS 27.3.
Apple's developer page also notes a separate cost point for apps that combine Siri AI integrations with their own generative features. Apps enrolled in the App Store Small Business Program with fewer than 2 million total first-time App Store downloads can use the next generation of Apple Foundation Models on Private Cloud Compute at no cloud API cost.
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SIRI AI DEVELOPER PREVIEW: CONFIRMED FACTS AND OPEN QUESTIONS.
Apple has confirmed that any developer can now build and test Siri AI integrations through App Intents in the iOS 27.3, iPadOS 27.3, macOS 27.3 and visionOS 27.3 betas, that the preview covers personal context, onscreen awareness, natural language requests, multi-step skills and any entity in the Spotlight semantic index, and that it runs on Apple Intelligence-enabled devices in six languages, with four more coming. The company has also confirmed that Siri AI remains unavailable in the EU on iOS, iPadOS and watchOS, that it is not available to users under 13, and that App Store submission opens in the spring.
Several points remain undisclosed. Apple has not given a date for the customer release beyond "a few months", has not published the daily usage limits for server-side Siri AI features, and has not released the terms and usage policies that will govern Siri AI-enabled experiences. Apple has also not said when the restriction in the European Union will be lifted. Until those details arrive, the preview is a testing window: developers can build and refine integrations now, but the rules under which those integrations ship are still to be set by Apple.
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