Apple opens Siri AI to actions across third-party apps

Apple says developers can now bring Siri AI's new features into all apps as part of iOS 27.3, which is rolling out on Tuesday as a Developer Preview. The features let the voice assistant draw on a user's personal context, handle natural language prompts and use on-screen awareness to complete requests.

A new app skills feature lets third-party developers combine several tasks into a single action. Apple's documentation says users won't need to name an app in their request while it is in the foreground, during a Live Activity, or in a conversation with Siri AI about that app. Apple's example is requesting a ride, then changing the pickup address by voice while the ride is on its way.

Apple is also extending Siri AI's expanded capabilities to its own apps, including Calendar, Files, Mail, Maps, Messages, Music, Notes, Photos, Safari, Shortcuts and Weather. Users can ask Siri AI what it can do in each app. 9to5Mac noted that Apple had previously made a smaller set of features available to third-party developers.

Agents that use Siri AI can now trigger actions inside third-party iOS apps without the user naming the app, which opens a new voice-driven route into app workflows. Because this is a developer preview, the interfaces and behavior may change before a public release. Teams planning app skills should break multi-step tasks into single actions and test them in foreground and Live Activity contexts.