Apple brings Siri AI to French, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese and Spanish in iOS 27.2, but not to iPhone users in the EU
Updated: 3 hours ago
Apple released its 27.2 software updates on October 26, 2026, and with them Siri AI, the rebuilt version of Siri that until now worked only in English, is expanding to French, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese and Spanish. The update covers iOS, iPadOS, macOS, watchOS and visionOS 27.2, and it is the first language expansion since Apple opened the Siri AI beta to the public in September. Apple announced the change in a newsroom note published the same day, describing Siri AI as an entirely new version of the assistant that is more capable, more conversational and more personal than the one it replaces.
The expansion is significant mainly because of who it reaches. French, Spanish and Portuguese open Siri AI to large user bases in Canada, Latin America, Brazil and other markets, while Japanese and Korean bring it to two of Apple's most important Asian markets. It does not, however, change the situation in the European Union, where Apple says Siri AI remains unavailable on iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch, nor in mainland China, where Apple has said the new Apple Intelligence features are not offered while it works through regulatory requirements. A French speaker in Montreal can now use Siri AI on an iPhone; a French speaker in Paris still cannot.
Apple is also keeping the beta label. Siri AI in 27.2 is described as available in beta, it requires an Apple Intelligence-enabled device set to a supported language, and it remains subject to daily usage limits on the features that run on Apple's servers. Apple repeats in this announcement that expanded access to those server-side features will be available for a fee in the future, without saying when or at what price.
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WHAT SIRI AI DOES IN THE NEW LANGUAGES.
According to Apple, the feature set in the five new languages is the same one introduced in English. Siri AI is built on Apple Intelligence and uses personal context to find information across messages, emails and photos, so a user can ask for a restaurant suggestion a friend sent, a confirmation number buried in an email or pictures from a specific trip. It can carry out systemwide app actions, such as drafting an email from scratch or editing and sharing a set of photos, and it has onscreen awareness, which lets it answer questions about what is currently displayed or act on it. For questions that go beyond the user's own data, Siri AI draws on broad world knowledge to return current information.
When Apple introduced Siri AI in June, it explained that the assistant runs on Apple Foundation Models, partly on device and partly on servers through Private Cloud Compute. A system orchestrator connects the assistant to the Spotlight index and to an App Toolbox that exposes app actions, and Apple said both of those components run entirely on device. For requests handled by Private Cloud Compute, Apple's stated position is that personal data is not stored and is not accessible to Apple, and that outside experts can verify this. The June announcement did not name any third-party model behind Siri AI, and the October note does not change that picture.
Apple's release notes for iOS 27.2, as reported on the day of release, add several capabilities on top of the language expansion. Siri AI can now recall earlier conversations, so a user can come back to something the assistant suggested before, such as a restaurant. It can draw on more sources, including photos attached in Messages, attendees of Calendar events and voicemails, and Apple says it returns better results from Safari history and the Reading List. A new Excluded Apps setting controls, in one place, which apps Siri, Search and suggestions are allowed to access, and granular text selection lets users copy only part of a Siri response. On the Mac, macOS 27.2 brings conversation recall to Siri AI as well.
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LANGUAGES, NOW AND BY THE END OF THE YEAR.
Apple Intelligence as a whole already supports a longer list of languages than Siri AI does. The device and Siri language can be set to sixteen languages for Apple Intelligence features, but the new assistant covers only part of that list. With 27.2, Siri AI moves from one language to six, and Apple has committed to four more by the end of 2026.
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Language | Siri AI status | Timing |
English | Available (beta) | Since September 2026 |
French | Available (beta) | 27.2, October 26, 2026 |
Japanese | Available (beta) | 27.2, October 26, 2026 |
Korean | Available (beta) | 27.2, October 26, 2026 |
Portuguese | Available (beta) | 27.2, October 26, 2026 |
Spanish | Available (beta) | 27.2, October 26, 2026 |
Chinese (traditional) | Announced | By the end of 2026 |
Norwegian | Announced | By the end of 2026 |
Turkish | Announced | By the end of 2026 |
Vietnamese | Announced | By the end of 2026 |
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Five languages that Apple Intelligence supports are not on either list: Chinese (simplified), Danish, Dutch, German and Italian. Apple has not given a date for Siri AI in those languages. The absence of German, Italian and Dutch matters less in practice than it might seem, because the markets where those languages dominate are largely inside the EU, where the iPhone version of Siri AI is not offered in any language. Chinese (simplified) is tied to mainland China, where Apple has said the new Apple Intelligence features are not available.
Apple also adds a familiar caveat: some features may not be available in all regions or languages. The newsroom note does not list which capabilities, if any, differ between English and the five new languages, so users should not assume that every English feature, such as specific app integrations or world-knowledge answers, behaves identically on day one.
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WHAT CHANGES FOR USERS IN EUROPE, CHINA AND ELSEWHERE.
The regional picture is the part of this update that most affects who can actually use the new Siri. Apple's wording in the October announcement is that Siri AI is currently unavailable in the EU on iOS, iPadOS and watchOS, and that the company is working with the EU to find a way forward. When the beta launched in September, Apple specified that Mac and Apple Vision Pro users in the EU can access Siri AI if their device is set to a supported language. That distinction now has more practical weight: an EU user with a Mac set to French or Spanish can use the new assistant in that language, while the same user's iPhone cannot.
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Region and platform | Siri AI in 27.2 |
Outside EU and China, all platforms | Available in beta in six languages |
EU, Mac and Apple Vision Pro | Available with a supported language |
EU, iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch | Not available |
Mainland China | Not available |
Users under 13 | Not available |
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Apple has not explained, in this announcement, which specific EU requirements are blocking the iPhone launch, and it has not offered a timeline. Its June statement said only that it was working to find a path that preserves user privacy and security. What EU users do not get, as a result, is the new assistant and its personal-context and app-action capabilities on their mobile devices.
In mainland China, Apple's position since June has been that Siri AI and the other new Apple Intelligence features will not be available while it works through regulatory requirements, and the 27.2 release does not change that. Apple also restricts Siri AI by age: it is not available to users under 13, regardless of region.
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DEVICES, DAILY LIMITS AND THE FUTURE FEE.
Siri AI requires an Apple Intelligence-enabled device. Apple's September list of supported hardware is the reference for the 27.2 rollout, and the language expansion does not add any devices to it. An iPhone 15 or iPhone 15 Plus, for example, still does not qualify.
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Device family | Supported models |
iPhone | iPhone Duo, iPhone Air, iPhone 16 and later, iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max |
iPad | iPad mini (A17 Pro), iPad with M1 or later |
Mac | MacBook Neo (A18 Pro), Mac with M1 or later |
Apple Vision Pro | Apple Vision Pro |
Apple Watch | Series 9 or later, Ultra 2 or later, SE 3, paired with an eligible iPhone |
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Usage is capped. Apple states that features relying on server-side models, which it lists as Siri AI, intelligent photo editing tools, Image Playground and AFM 3 Cloud models in Shortcuts, are subject to daily usage limits. Those limits may vary by feature, by the complexity of the request, by system demand and by system policies. Apple does not publish the actual numbers, so users cannot know in advance how many complex requests a day they can make before hitting the cap. The company's sentence on monetization is short and unchanged since September: expanded access to such features will be available for a fee in the future. That is the clearest signal so far that Apple intends to sell a paid tier for heavier use of its cloud-based AI features, but there is no announced price, plan name or launch date.
For users in the newly supported languages, the practical steps are simple. The device must run the 27.2 update, the device and Siri language must be set to one of the six supported languages, and the user must be outside the regions where the feature is blocked for that platform. Because Siri AI is still a beta, Apple's own framing suggests users should expect changes in behavior and occasional gaps.
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OTHER APPLE INTELLIGENCE CHANGES IN 27.2.
The 27.2 updates bring a few other AI-related changes that are not limited to Siri. Messages gains Suggestions that propose actions based on the context of a conversation, such as adding a calendar invitation when friends agree on a dinner, and users can choose which kinds of suggestions appear. Photos and Image Playground add support for SynthID watermarks as content credentials, which helps identify images generated or modified with AI. That is a notable choice, since SynthID is Google's watermarking technology, and its adoption in Apple's photo tools points to a broader industry move toward shared provenance signals rather than one watermark per company.
The Excluded Apps setting deserves attention beyond its convenience. As assistants gain access to more personal data and more apps, a single control that removes an app from Siri, Search and suggestions gives users a coarse but understandable privacy lever. It complements the approach Apple has taken on the Mac, where it recently tightened access controls in response to the spread of autonomous agents, a topic covered in our report on how Apple tightened macOS Full Disk Access.
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HOW SIRI AI COMPARES WITH THE COMPETITION ON LANGUAGES AND REGIONS.
The language expansion narrows, but does not close, a gap with competing assistants. Google's Gemini app and OpenAI's ChatGPT have offered conversational assistants in dozens of languages for some time, and both are available to iPhone users in the EU through their own apps. What Apple offers that those apps cannot fully replicate is system-level integration: access to Messages, Mail, Photos, Calendar and voicemail through on-device indexing, and the ability to trigger actions inside apps through the operating system. The trade-off is that Apple ties this integration to its own privacy architecture and its own pace of regulatory negotiation, which is why the most valuable part of the product is still missing on iPhones across the European Union.
For Apple, the six-language beta is also a scale test of Private Cloud Compute. Each new language adds demand for server-side processing, and Apple's daily limits are the mechanism that lets it manage that demand before any paid tier exists.
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WHAT IS CONFIRMED AND WHAT REMAINS OPEN.
The confirmed facts are clear. Since October 26, 2026, Siri AI is available in beta in English, French, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese and Spanish across iOS, iPadOS, macOS, watchOS and visionOS 27.2, on Apple Intelligence-enabled devices. Chinese (traditional), Norwegian, Turkish and Vietnamese are promised by the end of the year. Siri AI remains unavailable on iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch in the EU, unavailable in mainland China and unavailable to users under 13, and its server-side features are subject to daily limits with a future paid tier announced but not defined. According to the 27.2 release notes, the update also adds conversation memory, new personal-data sources and an Excluded Apps privacy setting.
Several questions remain open. Apple has not said when Siri AI will reach iPhones in the EU, what the EU discussions involve, or when German, Italian, Dutch, Danish and simplified Chinese will be supported. It has not published the daily limits or the price of expanded access, and it has not said whether any capabilities differ between English and the new languages. Until Apple answers those points, the 27.2 release is best read as a substantial geographic and linguistic expansion of a product that is still in beta, with its largest regulatory obstacle unresolved.
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