Apple to roll out AI-powered App Controls on iPhone

Apple still plans to release its App Intents feature, which allows Siri to perform actions inside apps on behalf of the user, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reported in his latest Power On newsletter.

According to him, the new set of AI features, first announced back in 2024, is expected to launch next spring. App Intents will debut on iPhone alongside the previously promised revamped Siri.

"App Intents is core to building experiences for Apple Intelligence and for Controls. The App Intents framework is providing new ways to help the system understand and use your app entities and making AppIntents even easier to use.

Now that developers can use App Intents to index all of their entities, make them meaningful to Spotlight and Siri," Apple explained.

• The update was originally planned for iOS 18, but Apple faced technical delays, so the release is now expected in iOS 26.4.
• In the upcoming update, users will finally get a completely new Siri, which, thanks to App Intents, will be able to perform actions in apps on their behalf.
• Part of the changes will give Siri deeper control over other apps on iPhone and across devices.
• To roll out the feature, Apple is actively partnering with several companies to run joint testing of App Intents, including apps like Uber, Amazon, and YouTube.

It’s likely that even after the spring launch, the feature won’t work with all apps. The company may significantly limit Siri’s capabilities or disable support entirely for apps in sensitive areas such as finance and healthcare.

Gurman also noted internal disagreements within Apple, with some developers voicing concerns over App Intents’ reliability in third-party software where precision is critical. For example, in banking or medical apps:

"But there’s some concern inside the company, I’m told. Engineers have been struggling to ensure that the system works with a sufficient number of apps and is accurate enough to handle high-stakes scenarios. There are worries about the software failing in categories where precision is nonnegotiable, like in health or banking apps," Gurman concluded.