Siri AI Finally Makes Sense, But There's a Catch

Michael Bennett · 2026-09-26

I upgraded my Mac to macOS Golden Gate 27.0, eager to see what Apple AI could deliver. The big promise? A more powerful Siri AI, now available as a standalone app. I've been critical of Siri in the past—it often failed at even the simplest requests. But Siri AI, currently in opt-in beta, suddenly starts to make a lot of sense. It's more powerful than I expected, though it's not without a few quirks. ### Better Email Management The default Siri app has always been terrible at handling emails. I asked it to list any important emails, and it only suggested one from 2011 with the word 'important' in the subject line. Not exactly helpful. With ChatGPT connected to my Exchange account, I got much better results. The same question flagged important emails I'd missed, including a recent invoice I needed to pay. After upgrading to Siri AI, things improved dramatically. It now has a dedicated chat-window app, similar to ChatGPT for macOS, where you can start different conversations. Siri is also integrated into Spotlight search. When I asked about important emails again, I got relevant results from all my email accounts. The best part? Siri AI provides links to the emails in Apple Mail, so I can open them directly. ChatGPT can list emails but doesn't let you open them—you have to manually find them in your email app. Siri AI also handles bulk tasks. I asked it to find newsletter and marketing emails and mark them as read. That quickly cleared out my inbox and made it easier to focus on what's left. ### Intelligence Needs to Be Available at the Point You Need It Siri AI is clearly capable, but it needs to be available when and where you need it. For example, my old school is hosting a Macmillan Coffee Morning on September 25 from 10:30 AM to 11:15 AM. When I open the email, the Mail app highlights dates and times, making it easy to create a calendar event. But because of how the email was written, the date and time are in separate sentences. As a result, they're highlighted separately, giving me the choice of creating an event with the right time but wrong date, or the right date but wrong time. The Summarise feature automatically combines the information, but it doesn't create a clickable link to make the event. However, when I asked Siri AI when the coffee morning was, it gave me the correct info. I then asked for a calendar entry, and it was created correctly. That's clever, but this option should be available right in the email app, at the point where I need it. ### Automations Need Work Siri AI claims it can create home automations, but this proved unreliable. I asked it to create an automation that turns off the office lights when the smart lock locks. It said it was done and provided a link to the Home app, which didn't work. No combination of typing would get the automation working, and I ended up with an error message saying my Nuki smart lock isn't supported for automations. Siri AI also struggles with multiple commands at once. I asked it to turn on the lights and unlock my Yale Linus smart lock. The lights came on, but the lock didn't unlock. When I told Siri I'd asked for two things, it finally unlocked the door. Clearly, Siri AI understands the question, but it needs improvement before it can handle multi-step requests as well as Alexa+ can. ### Siri AI Can't Always Open Apps I have a spreadsheet for household expenses, with one sheet per year. I could get Siri AI to find the right file with a simple search command, but it wouldn't open it. I had to manually open the file. This is a small but frustrating limitation. ### Final Thoughts Siri AI is a significant step forward. It's finally useful for email management and can handle some complex tasks. But it's not perfect. Automations are unreliable, and it struggles with multiple commands. Still, it's a promising start, and I'm excited to see how Apple improves it. > "Siri AI is like a brilliant assistant who occasionally forgets how to tie their shoes. You're impressed, but you still have to double-check." If you're a Mac user, I'd recommend giving Siri AI a try. Just don't expect it to be flawless. It's a beta, after all.