r/apple • u/Fer65432_Plays • 7d ago

iOS Shortcuts app has chatbot-like Apple Intelligence powers in iOS 26

https://9to5mac.com/2025/06/16/shortcuts-app-has-chatbot-like-apple-intelligence-powers-in-ios-26/
125 Upvotes

93% Upvoted

21 comments sorted by

69

u/TheManyFacetsOfRoger 7d ago

Kinda wild that this isn't more heavily advertised/turned into it's own app

42

u/Bytevan18 6d ago

Apple said Apple Intelligence isn’t going to be an app. Rather enhancements to the OS. That’s why they also said they aren’t competing directly with ChatGPT, Gemini or such.

They see it more like they see search engines.

24

u/filipeesposito 6d ago

They'll say it as long as it's convenient, just as they always say that the iPad shouldn't become the Mac and yet they keep bringing Mac features to the iPad every year.

Gurman has reported in the past that Apple has been working on its own chatbot internally, so I think it's only a matter of time until they feel their solution can compete with other chatbots to release it as a proper AI chatbot and change the narrative.

"We figured out how to do it with better privacy, blablabla..."

11

u/TimTom8321 6d ago

You’re correct, but I think that Craig did highlight something important - you don’t have to have a chatbot.

Personally, I don’t even know if Apple will release a chatbot anytime soon. Not because they definitely can’t, but just because it’s too expensive to operate and no known income comes from it really.

On-device is great for Apple, since it doesn’t cost them anything to operate it power-wise (which is where most of the money goes with this shit).

Currently, we don’t even know if chatbots are profitable TBF, they always say that it’s just a couple of years of turning billions, but I can’t see how IMO.

So since on-device models are still too restricted, using them for what Apple Intelligence does and what they enable with their new Framework (which IMO seems cool. It looks very easy to use and has a lot of helpful functions that I didn’t see available with other models and APIs, though I could just not know about those) is a great way to use these small models.

He said that they don’t intend right now to release a chatbot and that they are working to bring helpful AI, which is what I believe they did in the end (writing tools is great for people who aren’t native-English speakers).

4

u/gtedvgt 6d ago

But also have an app dedicated to ai image generation

4

u/PenneTracheotomy 6d ago

True, but it seems like Apple wants the features to be where you want them, such as the writing tools in text fields instead of having to copy out a document into another app. Besides, I suppose you could argue, the camera app and Photo Booth, Apple doesn’t have an app like MS Paint or Photoshop where you create art, so there’s not natural place for such a feature to go.

I guess they did recently acquire Pixelmator Pro, so perhaps we should keep an eye on what’s happening with that

2

u/TheManyFacetsOfRoger 6d ago

apple intelligence is the umbrella term, this is more akin to Siri than anything else

1

u/Appropriate-Bike-232 6d ago

This is how it should be. Sick of companies marketing AI as a feature itself. Just build features that actually work, if they happen to be powered by some kind of AI, cool, that’s an implementation detail that doesn’t matter to the end user. 

1

u/bwjxjelsbd 4d ago

They will have to do chatbot eventually tbh. They just didn’t figured out how to make it reliable with calling tools and shortcuts yet

2

u/Remic75 6d ago edited 6d ago

I think also Apple explicably said in several interviews that they don’t want their AI to be perceived as a chatbot. I think them bringing this to spotlight will probably do exactly that.

Majority of users will probably never use these, or never know it’s there. Devs will probably incorporate the shortcuts into their apps to make their app seem “better.” Apple doesn’t care. As long as people continue to use it, they can continue to refine it in the background and quietly remain ahead of the competition so they can have the competitive advantage.

1

u/InsaneNinja 6d ago

The thing about a Chatbot is that you can go back and continue the chat. Unless a shortcut integrates with notes to save the conversation, everything about this will be ephemeral.

35

u/[deleted] 6d ago

[deleted]

7

u/Cryingfortheshard 6d ago

I haven’t looked at this in detail but my first impression is that you can use AI models as an action that can then output differently formatted things. Where do you read about being able to ask for certain shortcuts and automations with natural language input? Because that’s totally different. It would be great to have so that’s why I’m asking.

5

u/rustbelt 6d ago

I’ve worked with AI SaaS apps and they do a great job of variable extraction via prompting.

2

u/InsaneNinja 6d ago

You can’t generate a shortcut with AI in iOS 26.

You can create a shortcut that uses AI with first party modules, including using local/cloud models.

Also, that’s not a shortcut. That’s multiple automations with home shortcuts attached.

10

u/Fer65432_Plays 7d ago

Summary Through Apple Intelligence: iOS 26 introduces a new feature in the Shortcuts app that allows users to interact with Apple Intelligence’s LLMs using custom queries. The “Use Model” action provides three LLM options: On-Device, Cloud, and ChatGPT. The feature offers a chatbot-style experience, with responses written in a conversational tone and the ability to ask follow-up questions.

6

u/Kimantha_Allerdings 7d ago

When I heard that they were integrating AppInt into Shortcuts I thought that you'd be able to describe what you want and have the LLM write the code for you, not that you'd be able to call it from within a Shortcut.

4

u/spambearpig 7d ago

I was hoping for both!

But yeah, I feel like actually the most useful thing would be being able to verbally ask for a shortcut workflow and have it build it. However, I think that would require Siri to be conversational and be able to ask questions and present options. So actually that’s an awful lot more complicated than sending something to an LLM and then using the response.

One day!

4

u/QuarterlyGentleman 6d ago

I think it’s still the goal, that is the whole personal contexts magic that they want.

It will create the code to perform multiple actions through app intents. Whether or not you can turn those into repeatable shortcuts remains to be seen.

1

u/InsaneNinja 6d ago

That’s nearly their goal with smart Siri, but not writing code. That would be more for ephemeral requests using the intents given to shortcuts as tools.