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macOS 27: Siri AI top features – Apple’s assistant finally comes to life [Video]

Published: 09/17/2026, 06:45 PM

It only took a decade, but with this week’s launch of macOS 27 Golden Gate, Siri has finally come to life on the Mac. It’s still in beta, and it’s not perfect, but the update represents a much improved and highly integrated experience that takes into account personal context while prioritizing privacy. Watch my full video as I walk through the top macOS 27 features: Siri AI edition, and be sure to subscribe to 9to5Mac on YouTube for more videos. Jeff Benjamin's favorite wireless earbuds; they just keep getting better. In macOS 27, Siri is no longer confined to a dedicated shortcut or a small menu bar item. Apple has elevated Siri into one of the most visible areas of the operating system in Spotlight search. You can still trigger voice search by holding the F5/microphone key, or by using the Hey Siri voice command, but Apple clearly thinks this new approach is where it’s at. Most Mac users rely on Spotlight for searching and launching apps, opening documents, calculating values, and browsing the web. Spotlight is where Mac users go to do things, and thus, it’s a natural fit for Siri. In macOS 26, “Ask Siri” sat as a lower option in the list. For example, typing “why was Steve Balmer suspended from the NBA” would prompt absurd choices like iCloud Drive, Finder, or the Web before reaching the Siri option at the bottom of the list. In macOS 27, Ask Siri is the leading choice. This shift makes Siri readily available at any point through the Mac’s most familiar keyboard shortcut: Command+Space. Jeff's favorite screen cleaning cloth that polishes to a shine. When you open Spotlight in macOS, a new prompt appears: Search or Ask. You can continue searching as before, with results appearing below, but you can also send queries to Siri by pressing Return. Siri’s answers now expand within Spotlight itself, contributing to a more unified feel. A major issue with previous versions of Siri was that even helpful answers vanished once a request ended, as though the topic had never been raised. This made each interaction feel like starting from the beginning. Even the ChatGPT integration in last year’s macOS 26 Tahoe shared this lapse in memory. Apple has mostly resolved this matter in macOS 27 through a new dedicated Siri app. When you submit a Siri query, it is stored in the app for later review. You can open the current query in the full app by selecting the expand button in the upper right corner of the Spotlight query. Apple also offers the choice to pin certain conversations for convenient access.