There are many iPhone 16 features to be eager for, not least of which is the new Apple Intelligence capability. Apple’s new AI can personalise your iPhone 16 experience, from quality writing assistance to even creating emojis of you and your loved ones. Learn more about what your camera is pointing at with new Visual intelligence or find your favourite holiday memories with just your voice. A new and completely customised experience is waiting just for you with the new iPhone 16 Apple intelligence features.

What is Apple Intelligence?

Apple Intelligence is an artificial intelligence created by Apple Inc. for their iPhone, iPad, and Mac products.* The AI examines personal context to find the best ways to assist you. Apple Intelligence will help you accelerate everyday tasks with writing tools, creating mail and notification summaries, improving Siri's capabilities, touching up photos, and more.

*Apple Intelligence: Apple Intelligence is available in beta on all iPhone 16 models, iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max, with Siri and device language set to English (Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa, UK or US), as an iOS 18 update. Additional features and languages will be available in April, with more languages coming over the course of the year. Languages supported in 2025 include Chinese, English (India, Singapore), French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish and Vietnamese.

Is Apple Intelligence the same as ChatGPT?

Although Apple Intelligence performs similar functions to OpenAI’s ChatGPT system, there are key differences in each system's function and purpose. Apple Intelligence runs directly on your iPhone or uses private cloud computing, so your data and preferences are not stored online. Apple’s AI is dedicated to making Apple products easier to use, while ChatGPT is more focused on presenting an AI model for interaction, content creation and translations.

However, it’s worth mentioning that Apple is working with OpenAI to develop Siri and widen your options when speaking to it.

Apple Intelligence features on iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro

Writing tools

1. Proofread: Looking for just the right words when you message an old friend? Apple Intelligence writing tools will correct spelling and grammar mistakes. The AI will also examine sentence structure and context to determine if a word is being used correctly, so you can avoid common mistakes like effect/affect, two/to/too and they’re/their/there.

2. Summarise: Are your notes and reminders becoming a full-length novel? Apple Intelligence can check long pieces of text, like your own notes and messages, and provide a short summary in plain terms. You can choose to see the summary as key points, a single phrase or even a list.

3. Rewrite: If you're the kind of person who struggles to strike the right tone between a work email and a message to relatives, this feature could be for you. The AI will be able to rewrite your texts to adjust the tone and wording to better suit the context of your message. Apple Intelligence can also swap out poor phrasing, so phrases like ‘write real good’ will be swapped for ‘Write really well’ or more grammatically correct language.

4. Smart reply: For anyone who overanalyses their text replies, the latest iPhones are here to help you save time and effort. Apple Intelligence will suggest possible phrases and texts as you write to streamline your writing experience and help you create and send polished messages in no time at all.

Photography

5. Image Playground: Struggling to visualise a thought or concept you’ve had all week? The new Image Playground app lets you turn a rough sketch into a fleshed-out image with an AI-powered intelligence wand and other generative graphic features.

6. Memories: Get over the holiday blues and relive your favourite travel memories with the new iPhone 16. With Apple Intelligence you can enter a description and the AI will generate custom movies and reels from your photos library based on your input.

7. Search: With Apple Intelligence search features, you don’t have to spend hours looking through years of events and vacations any more. Find the exact photos you’re looking for faster than ever with Apple’s AI. You can search for specific images by simply asking for them, like saying ‘Show me Katie in a red cap in Rome,’ and you can also request specific moments in videos.

8. Editing: There’s an entire production department right in the palm of your hand with the new iPhone 16’s editing features. With these AI editing capabilities, you can edit photos in new, innovative ways, from simple touch-ups like adjusting colours to removing people and objects from backgrounds instantly.

9. Visual Intelligence

Connect to the world like never before with Visual Intelligence. This brand-new program means you can simply point iPhone 16’s camera and click the camera control button to learn more about objects and places around you. The AI will then give you interesting details of what you are pointing at, like quick summaries of books, details about toy characters, restaurant closing times, and more.

Visual Intelligence is accessed with the new touch-sensitive Camera Control button on the side of the phone. Camera Control immediately launches the camera app when pressed, and enters the Visual Intelligence interface when long-pressed.

10. Focus Mode

Focus mode, also known as ‘reduce interruptions’, examines the personal context of notifications to show you which ones need immediate attention. For instance, you can set up the AI to prioritise a text about picking your mother up from the airport will be prioritised over others.

11. Siri

Siri has been upgraded with new, smooth and convenient features. Thanks to Apple's partnership with OpenAI, Siri now has ChatGPT AI integration, giving Siri more flexible and natural responses to questions and requests.

With the recent upgrades, you can also type instead of speak to Siri on an iPhone 16. Siri will also display a glowing light that wraps around the edge of the phone to show that it is running.

Transcript

12. Phone call recording: iPhone 16 will include a clearly labelled phone call recording feature that lets you immediately start, stop or pause a recording of your phone conversations*. When the recording starts, a voice prompt will let everyone on the call know that it is being recorded.

*Please be advised, under the Australian Telecommunications Act of 1979 it is illegal to record a phone conversation without all parties legal consent.

13. Voice recording in notes apps: Need to make a shopping list while you have your hands full? Voice messages can now be recorded on the Notes app, so you can quickly make a note of anything you need while it’s fresh in your mind. What’s more, notes can be summarised by Apple Intelligence into lists or bullet points.

14. Genmoji

Your unique conversations deserve your own unique expressions. With the new iPhone 16’s Genmojis, you can create your own emojis right on your phone, either from scratch or using photos of your friends and family. Turn your personal jokes into images, customise memes with your friends and make your conversations a unique visual experience.

15. Full transparency on privacy

Apple Intelligence uses on-device processing to better understand your habits and needs. The AI can run complex tasks on large servers while maintaining your privacy thanks to Private Cloud Compute. With this huge step forward for privacy, Apple's AI is aware of your personal information without collecting or storing it, so you don't have to worry about misuse of your personal information or other security risks.

Apple Intelligence at your fingertips with iPhone 16

You have a new personal assistant right in your pocket with iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro, helping you to stay connected with ease. Whether it’s saving time on tasks like email writing and proofreading or finding the right words to say for any given situation, Apple Intelligence can make everyday tasks effortless.

Your Apple iPhone 16 is personalised to your life so you can prioritise what’s most important to you. Satisfy your curiosity about any place with Visual Intelligence or turn your expressions into emoji’s in groupchats. The AI features seamlessly integrate with your iPhone to enhance your experience.