iOS 27 Siri AI review: Why Apple’s upgraded assistant still struggles - IOL

Testing Apple's upgraded Siri AI on iOS 27 reveals that despite years of hype, basic voice recognition errors still ruin the user experience. Seen here: Only after including extra information, that I'm looking for my dog videos did i start making any kind of headway. Picture: Michael Sherman/IOL

As a tech enthusiast, I was genuinely excited about the release of iOS 27, which I installed on my iPhone 16e last week. The primary driver behind my anticipation was finally getting the chance to put the revamped Siri AI through its paces.

For the past couple of years, Apple has relentlessly marketed its devices as being built from the ground up for "Apple Intelligence.”

Rebranding it to Siri AI feels like classic Apple—always preferring proprietary terminology to frame its achievements as superior to rival tech giants. But I digress.

The main draw of this milestone update was gaining access to a smarter Siri AI, engineered to interact intuitively and seamlessly—a far cry from its previous iteration, which felt like little more than a glorified voice assistant capable of little else beyond setting a simple timer.

The moment the update finished, I decided to test its capabilities right away. I knew for a fact that my photos were meticulously tagged: my older dog, Bowie (named after David Bowie), and my younger one, Twyla (spelled T-W-Y-L-A, after the character in Schitt's Creek).

Since both dogs appear clearly labeled throughout my photo library, I asked Siri to pull up videos of Twyla. It failed completely.

Across at least four separate attempts, I received the exact same frustrating result: Siri assumed I had mispronounced the prompt and repeatedly offered to play movie trailers for Twilight—something I had zero interest in watching.

While I have yet to conduct a comprehensive sweep of all its features, that initial impression was overwhelmingly disappointing. As far as I'm concerned, the shiny new Siri AI is still rubbish.

* The views expressed are not necessarily the views of IOL.

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