What is Apple Intelligence?
A plain-English guide

If you have an iPhone 15 Pro or any iPhone 16, you may have noticed a soft glowing border appearing around your screen sometimes, or a new button called Writing Tools showing up when you select text. That's Apple Intelligence at work.

Apple Intelligence is Apple's name for the collection of AI features built directly into iOS 26, macOS 26, and iPadOS 26. Unlike ChatGPT or Gemini — which are separate apps or websites — Apple Intelligence works inside the apps you already use.

What devices support it?

Apple Intelligence requires an iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max, or any iPhone 16 model (including iPhone 16, 16 Plus, 16 Pro, and 16 Pro Max). On Mac, it works on any Mac with an Apple silicon chip (M1 or later). Older devices don't have the processing power needed to run it.

You also need to be running iOS 18.1 or later, and your device language must be set to English (initially; more languages are being added).

What can it actually do?

The features fall into a few categories:

• Writing Tools. Select any text you've written — in Mail, Notes, Messages, or almost anywhere else — and Apple Intelligence can proofread it, make it more concise, adjust the tone, or summarise it. You'll see a Writing Tools option appear in the menu.
• Email and message summaries. Long email threads and group chats can be summarised automatically. Instead of reading 12 messages to find out whether the meeting is still happening, you see a one-line summary at the top.
• Priority notifications. Apple Intelligence learns which notifications matter to you and moves the important ones to the top of your list.
• Photo cleanup. In the Photos app, a Clean Up tool can remove unwanted objects from the background of a photo — a stranger who walked into your shot, a bin that ruined an otherwise perfect picture.
• A smarter Siri. Siri can now understand more complex requests and, with your permission, take actions across your apps — finding a specific email, setting a reminder from information in a text, and so on.
• ChatGPT access through Siri. For questions that go beyond what Siri can handle, it can pass your question to ChatGPT (with your permission). You'll always be asked before anything is sent.

Is it private?

Apple designed Apple Intelligence to process most requests on your device — meaning your data doesn't leave your phone. When a request is too complex for on-device processing, it's handled by Apple's servers using a system Apple calls Private Cloud Compute. Apple has stated that it can't see or store what you ask.

When Siri passes a request to ChatGPT, Apple anonymises it first and tells you before it happens. You can decline.

How do you turn it on?

On a supported device running iOS 18.1 or later, go to Settings → Apple Intelligence & Siri and tap Turn On Apple Intelligence. Some features activate immediately; others — like the enhanced Siri — may take a few minutes to download in the background.

Once it's on, you don't need to do anything special to use it. Writing Tools appears automatically when you select text. Summaries appear in Mail and Messages when a thread is long enough. The features blend into what you're already doing.

Do you need to use it?

No. Apple Intelligence is opt-in. If you turn it on and decide you don't like it, you can turn it off again from the same Settings page. Most of the features are subtle additions rather than dramatic changes to how your phone works.