Apple mostly drops the waitlist for its new Siri AI

• Apple said the waitlist for Siri AI is now reserved only for periods of “high demand.”
• It’s an important update as the tech company leans into its fresh AI capabilities.
• Siri AI will be a better assistant, Apple said, because it gets more user context.

The new AI-ified Siri is getting closer to ditching its waitlist.

On Monday, Apple published an updated blog titled “How to get Siri AI,” where the tech company said the feature would automatically download for eligible users who opt in.

Previously, Apple device users who wanted Siri AI would join a waitlist. Consumers reported that the queue lasted anywhere from a few hours to a couple of days.

Apple now says it will use a waitlist only during periods of “high demand.”

The update is a small but notable shift for Apple’s fresh AI bet — it shows that the company is getting more comfortable opening the gates to its more powerful Siri assistant.

Siri AI, which was revealed in June at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference, can draw on a user’s personal context across apps like iMessage, Calendar, Mail, and Photos to perform tasks such as quickly finding a flight number or identifying products on a device’s screen. It also gets its own independent app.

“With Siri AI, we really have the Siri that we always wanted,” John Ternus, the company’s new CEO, said during the company’s earnings call on Monday. “It is primarily request-based today, but as we talked about at WWDC, it is built on a modern, orchestrator-driven architecture that gives us real room to expand its capabilities over time.”

The feature is still in beta and requires an Apple Intelligence-capable device. For iPhone users, that means they need an iPhone 15 Pro or later model.