Apple Intelligence is finally here (or at least most of it is), with Siri due an upgrade later this year. Still, what’s here is a great foundation, offering features like ChatGPT integration with Siri, Writing Tools, and the controversial Notification summaries feature.
While Apple’s advertising has likely shown you all of that, you might not know just how to customize the experience. But fret not, TechRadar is here to help you out.
Below, we’ll cover how to access Apple Intelligence, and how to tweak settings to get the AI experience you want on your iPhone, iPad, or Mac.
How to turn on Apple Intelligence
In case you’ve not engaged with Apple Intelligence yet, you’ll need to have an iPhone 15 Pro, Pro Max, or iPhone 16 (any) model for your iPhone to use it. iPad users will need the A17 Pro chip or an M1 or later model, while Macs with M1 or later get Apple's AI features.
If your device can run it, head to the Settings app on iPhone or iPad, or System Settings on Mac, and opt-in via the Apple Intelligence option.
On your device of choice, head into Settings and ‘Apple Intelligence & Siri’, then request access by tapping ‘Get Apple Intelligence’.
Doing so will download the model, and enable it on your Apple device.
Check out this guide for more in-depth steps on how to enable and turn off Apple Intelligence.
Apple Intelligence Settings Explained
Siri settings are now tied into Apple Intelligence, but don’t be confused — Siri’s ‘brain transplant’ is coming later this year, which will give it improved contextual awareness.
That means this Apple Intelligence & Siri section is where you can adjust Siri’s trigger phrase (or turn it off), and trigger shortcuts for Siri.
The latter one is ideal, since Siri can now be interacted with without needing your voice, and can link out to ChatGPT (more on that shortly).
On Mac, that means you can now double press your right CMD key to type directly to Siri in the top corner of the screen, but the same also applies to double-tapping the bottom bar on your iPhone or iPad to type to Siri.
On iPhone, Apple Intelligence also manifests itself in Spotlight Suggestions, letting you drag down on your Home Screen to search for files, apps, contacts, and more.
This isn’t new, but it’s now handled in this hybrid menu where users can turn on and off various suggestions for Spotlight.
Finally, at the bottom of the page on iPhone you can select ‘Apps’ and adjust each application’s Apple Intelligence features independently of one another.
Want Summarized Notifications for Messages but not WhatsApp? Here’s where you can make those distinctions, as well as potentially turn off the ‘Learn from this App’ toggle so Apple’s machine learning can’t assimilate data from how you use the app to help make its app suggestions.
Logging into ChatGPT, and why you might want to
ChatGPT is arguably the front-runner in the current AI race, and it can be set up to work directly from within Apple Intelligence-enabled Siri.
Apple will always warn you if it needs to lean on ChatGPT, so even if the service is toggled on, don’t expect all of your data to go to OpenAI’s servers every time.
If you do want to use ChatGPT with Apple Intelligence, you can do so without an account. If you’re already using it elsewhere, however, it can be helpful to create an account or log in.
If you have a ChatGPT Plus account, you’ll be able to enjoy a higher limit of requests, but it’s worth noting Apple won’t tell you how far under your limit you are, whichever plan you’re on. It’ll only tell you you’re ‘Under Limit’ until the limit is reached.
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