iOS 27 could make your AirPods a lot more powerful, here’s why

iOS 27’s unveiling is a little over one month away, and Siri’s major overhaul is set to make not only the iPhone feel far more powerful, but AirPods too.

New Siri in iOS 27 will make AirPods a more capable AI device

In the acclaimed sci-fi/drama film Her, Joaquin Phoenix’s character has an AI companion perpetually in his ear, voiced by Scarlett Johansson.

The movie released in 2013, but it prophetically explored a future that we, in several respects, now find ourselves living in. And that could be even more true when iOS 27 arrives.

iOS 27 is rumored to center heavily around Apple’s long-awaited Siri overhaul.

The new Siri will reportedly offer:

• conversational, chatbot-style features like ChatGPT
• LLM-powered intelligence about the world and your own personal context
• deep, systemwide controls for in-app and cross-app actions
• the ability to perform multi-step actions with a single user request
• and extensions for third-party AI platforms too

All of this sounds like a big win for iPhone, iPad, and Mac users.

But Siri’s iOS 27 upgrades could also prove transformative for AirPods, offering an experience eerily similar to what ‘Her’ foretold.

AirPods could become a convenient device for voice-first computing in iOS 27

I wear AirPods Pro for the vast majority of each day. They’re one of the most important Apple products for me, as I rely on Active Noise Cancellation to help me focus and get things done.

And with iOS 27, the new Siri could make for another compelling reason to wear AirPods all the time.

Being able to invoke Siri at any moment just by saying ‘Siri’ has always been a great feature. But currently, I don’t use it all that often because Siri itself is so unreliable.

But if Apple—with Google’s help—can deliver a compelling Siri overhaul for the AI era, I expect I’ll start using Siri via AirPods a whole lot more.

Apple’s tight integration of hardware and software will give Siri an advantage over third-party AI chatbots, which require manually opening an app to use them.

The current ChatGPT integration in Siri offers a small glimpse into what iOS 27 should enable—but it has its own shortcomings. You always have to specify for Siri to “ask ChatGPT,” which becomes tiresome and clunky. The conversational features also aren’t fully there.

In iOS 27, Siri will reportedly provide a fully conversational, back-and-forth AI experience that feels seamless on iPhone and AirPods alike. You’ll have an intelligent AI companion just one “Siri” away.

As much as I’m looking forward to the standalone Siri app in iOS 27, I’m just as excited about the prospect of AirPods becoming a true AI device thanks to the new Siri too.

Do you expect iOS 27’s new Siri will change your use of AirPods much? Let us know in the comments.

Best iPhone accessories

• AirPods Pro 3 (now only $199, down from $249)
• MagSafe Car Mount for iPhone
• 10-year AirTag battery case 2-pack
• 100W USB-C fast charging power adapter
• Apple’s new AirTag 2 (1-pack / 4-pack)