Apple is set to announce iOS 18 at the upcoming WWDC 24 and give Siri its biggest upgrade in years. According to reports, Apple’s virtual assistant will become more capable than ever by fully utilizing new AI features.
Now, we may have found some interesting use cases for the improved version of Siri. Apple has just published a new patent titled “Virtual Assistant in a Communication Session” detailing we’ll soon be able to add Siri to group chats in iOS.
When added to a group chat, Siri can assist the participants with various tasks, like giving directions, checking the weather, and more. All these actions will be performed inside a messaging app, without opening any external apps.
“A user can use a communication application to enter a message directed to the virtual assistant. The virtual assistant can analyze the entered message and determine that the message was directed to the virtual assistant. As a result, the virtual assistant will assist the user with the identified task. A virtual assistant can assist a user with a variety of different tasks. For example, the virtual assistant can gather requested data for the user from one or more web servers, such as weather data, traffic data, etc.”
States the document
We don’t know when this new feature will make its way to iOS, nor whether it will work exclusively with iMessage. However, it’s definitely worth keeping an eye on, as it could drastically enhance the way we use our phones for messaging.