App Schemas let developers map their app's entities and actions to predefined Siri-understandable structures, grouped into App Schema Domains (e.g. messages, photos, mail), so Siri can find content, answer questions, and execute actions in natural language without any custom NLU code.
ā¢ Siri can now access real app content semantically ā users can ask "Show my last message from Glow" and get an answer without opening the app, powered by IndexedEntity conformance
ā¢ Conforming an action to an App Schema (e.g. sendMessage) gives Siri full understanding of parameters, validation, and execution flow ā developers write zero natural language handling
ā¢ App Schema Domains package a coherent set of schemas (mail, messages, photos, etc.) so adopting one domain instantly unlocks an entire class of Siri interactions
Foundation Models is a new Apple framework introduced in iOS 27 that gives developers on-device access to the same Apple Intelligence language model powering system features, enabling text generation, structured output, and tool-calling entirely on-device without a network connection.
Visual Intelligence brings iOS 17's Visual Look Up capabilities to a new developer-facing API surface in iOS 27, letting apps pipe live camera frames or static images through on-device scene understanding to extract subjects, text, barcodes, and rich semantic labels without any cloud round-trip.
iOS 27 opens the Foundation Models framework to third-party LLM providers via a new public LanguageModel protocol, enabling anyone to integrate custom, server-based, or open-source models using the same Swift API as Apple's on-device system model.
In-depth guide
iOS 27 On-Device AI & Apple Intelligence āApp Schemas let developers describe their app's content and actions using pre-defined domain schemas (like the Calendar domain) so Siri can understand, search, and act on app data without custom NLP. Entities conforming to IndexedEntity are donated to Spotlight's semantic index, enabling natural-language queries over app content.