New vs. Old Siri: How Much of an Upgrade Is Apple Intelligence?

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Apple Intelligence debuted this week with iOS 18.1, adding a slew of generative AI smarts to long-standing features, like Siri.

Apple's digital assistant is no longer a pulsing ball at the base of the screen. Instead, it's a multi-colored, neon glow around the edges, which you can interact with in two new ways: Pressing the lock button or a new text-to-Siri option.

How do responses from an Apple Intelligence Siri differ from the standard Siri? Apple says it can now understand you even if you stumble over your words. It can also field follow-up questions without you needing to repeat the premise of the conversation.

Did Apple succeed? We tested the Siri's new features on an iPhone 15 Pro equipped with Apple Intelligence, and compared the performance to the old Siri on an iPhone 13, which lacks the advanced chip required to run the latest AI.

1. Apple-Specific Knowledge

Apple trained the new Siri on a trove of device-specific questions, and delivered on that promise. Here's how the new and old Siri responded to the following questions:

• How do I use Apple CarPlay?

• How do I stop seeing messages from unknown senders?

The new Siri surfaced a concise summary of the directions, which we preferred over the list of links the old Siri provided. The new Siri also surfaced the information without speaking out loud, whereas the old one added an unnecessary voiceover: "Here's what I found on the web about Apple CarPlay." Both devices are set to have Siri decide when to speak and when to hold back, and the new Siri seems to prioritize silence.

2. Stumbling Over Your Words

The new Siri should not get thrown off course when you backtrack on a sentence, or throw in an "um," "like," or, "no wait, not that one." It seemed to perform much better in this regard than the old Siri on the following questions.

• "What's the weather like, or actually, what's the average age in New York City?"

• "What's the longest river, I mean highway, in the US?"

On both questions, the new Siri adjusted to my mid-sentence correction, while the old one did not. The new Siri provided the average age and the longest highway in the US (correct), while the old Siri got stuck on the weather and the river (incorrect). The new Siri also surfaced an easy-to-read summary of the answer, instead of web links.

The old Siri also gave another unnecessary verbal introduction to its on-screen answer: "Here's what I found." Overall, the experience is much improved in the new version.

3. Keeping Context With Follow-Up Questions

The upgraded version of Siri handles a string of questions more gracefully than before. Below, I asked it the following questions without repeating each time that I was talking about an espresso martini.

• How do I make an espresso martini?

• How much vodka do I need?

• Is there anything I could do to make it look extra nice?

The new Siri answered each correctly, while the old Siri did not make it to the second question. When I asked, "How much vodka do I need?" it answered, "Sorry, I don't understand."

At the same time, both versions of Siri performed the same on a series of simple questions about the weather. The only difference was the old Siri provided a voiceover for each response (i.e. "Here's the weather in Seattle") while the new Siri kept quiet.

• What's the weather in Seattle?

• What about somewhere south of Seattle, like Renton?

• What about in Turkey?

• What's the average temperature there?

4. Type to Siri

Siri is less verbal these days, though you can adjust her chattiness via Settings > Accessibility > Siri > Spoken Responses. The new ability to text to Siri doubles down on non-verbal interactions. When you double-tap the bottom of the screen, it pulls up a text bar to ask a question. Apple did a great job with this command; it seems to work every time as intended.

This is a major differentiator for the new Siri, though the responses are not always satisfactory. Here's how it responded to three written questions:

• How do I share a Wi-Fi password?

• How do I make an espresso martini?

• What is the history of New York City?

It answered the first one accurately, but I expected more information on the other two, such as a full recipe for the martini or more detail about the history of the city beyond when it was founded.

5. Basic Knowledge

The new Siri may format its answers differently, be less prone to speaking out loud, and more able to answer a follow-up question, but is it smarter overall?

From what we can tell, the quality of Siri's answers have not improved much, and are not on par with competing chatbots such as ChatGPT, Google Gemini, or Claude.

We asked the new and old Siri to "write a small essay on poisonous mushrooms" and compared it to those three competitors. Both versions of Siri surfaced a list of links. The new Siri could have differentiated itself by providing a paragraph-style answer, like it did for other questions above. It cannot yet compete with ChatGPT and Claude, which rattled off coherent sentences instantly (although, you still might not want to take their advice verbatim on this topic).

In another example, we asked the new and old Siri to create an abdominal workout and it could not. This is bread and butter for a typical chatbot, and Siri is not there yet. It did not even surface a link to an online workout, and instead redirected to fitness apps installed on the device—an insufficient response altogether.

This could change in December, when Siri integrates with ChatGPT, giving users access to its "broad world of knowledge," Apple says, including advanced capabilities like creating images and reading documents.

In 2025, Siri will become even more capable and compelling with "onscreen awareness," a version of which Anthropic teased for its Claude chatbot this month. Siri will also be able to take actions across apps. Apple has not provided a specific release date for these capabilities.