How to Use AI on Your iPhone: UK Guide

Bought a new iPhone in the past couple of years? The chances are you already have Apple's AISoftware that can perform tasks that normally require human thinking, like understanding language or spotting patterns. features sitting on your phone, waiting to be switched on. You may have noticed a button offering to tidy up your writing, or Siri responding with longer and more thoughtful answers. That is Apple Intelligence at work.

This guide walks through everything you need to get started: which phones support it, how to turn it on, what it actually does, how ChatGPT fits in, and a few things worth knowing about privacy before you begin.

Which iPhones Have Apple Intelligence?

Apple Intelligence only runs on iPhones with a powerful enough chip. The models that qualify are:

• iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max
• iPhone 16, iPhone 16 Plus, iPhone 16 Pro, and iPhone 16 Pro Max

The standard iPhone 15, iPhone 15 Plus, and all older models do not support Apple Intelligence. If that is your phone, these features are not available to you. The good news is that free AI apps like ChatGPT work on any iPhone; our step-by-step ChatGPT setup guide shows you how to get started.

How to Switch Apple Intelligence On

Apple Intelligence is not switched on by default. Here is how to enable it:

1. Open the Settings app on your iPhone
2. Scroll down and tap Apple Intelligence & Siri
3. Tap Turn On Apple Intelligence
4. Your phone downloads the AI models it needs. This takes a few minutes and uses a few gigabytes of storage, so connect to Wi-Fi first

You need iOS 18.2 or later for the full set of features. To check, go to Settings, then General, then About; your software version is listed there. If it is out of date, go to Settings, then General, then Software Update.

If you have a supported iPhone and the option does not appear in Settings, check that your device language is set to English (United Kingdom). Go to Settings, then General, then Language and Region, and confirm English (United Kingdom) is selected. Apple's UK support page for Apple Intelligence explains this requirement in detail.

Five Things Apple Intelligence Can Do for You

Once it is on, Apple Intelligence adds new capabilities across several apps. Here are the five worth knowing about as a beginner.

1. Writing Tools: Tidy Up Any Text You Type

Writing Tools appear in almost any text field on your iPhone: Mail, Messages, Notes, and many third-party apps. When you finish typing an email or message and are not quite happy with how it reads, tap the small Writing Tools icon above your keyboard.

You can ask it to check spelling and grammar, shorten what you have written, change the tone to be more formal or more friendly, or summarise a long piece of text you have pasted in.

The first time we used it, we had typed a fairly long and meandering reply to a council letter. We tapped Make Shorter and had a clean two-sentence version within a couple of seconds. It is the feature most of our testers found immediately useful.

2. Notification Summaries: One Line Instead of Ten

If your phone fills up with notifications during the day (WhatsApp messages, news alerts, emails arriving one by one), Apple Intelligence can collapse a batch of them into a single summary line. So instead of ten separate banners, you see something like "Three messages from Sarah about Sunday's plans".

To manage this, go to Settings, then Notifications, and look for the Summarise Notifications option.

3. Siri With Context: Understands More Natural Questions

Siri has been updated to understand more natural questions, without needing to phrase things in a particular way.

Siri can now search through your own messages and emails to answer questions. Try saying "When is my dentist appointment?" or "What did my daughter say about Christmas?" and Siri will look through your own information rather than sending a web search.

4. Photo Features: Find and Fix Old Pictures

In the Photos app, you can now search using natural descriptions. Type "Mum at the beach" or "Christmas 2018" and Photos will look through your library for matches, using AI to understand what each image shows.

Photos also has tools for removing unwanted objects from pictures and for improving old or faded photographs. For old family photos you would like to restore or colourise, our guide to AI tools for old photos covers the dedicated services that do this well.

5. ChatGPT: The Optional Extra

ChatGPT is a separate AI from a company called OpenAI. Apple has built a connection so that Siri can hand off questions to ChatGPT when it cannot answer them itself. This is useful for detailed factual questions, longer writing tasks, or anything that needs broad knowledge of the world.

This connection is switched off by default and is entirely optional. The next section explains how to set it up.

How to Connect ChatGPT to Siri

To let Siri draw on ChatGPT when needed:

1. Go to Settings, then Apple Intelligence & Siri
2. Scroll down until you see ChatGPT and tap it
3. Tap Enable ChatGPT

You do not need a ChatGPT account to use it this way. Apple sends your question to ChatGPT without passing on details that could identify your device or location. Without a ChatGPT account connected, OpenAI cannot store your question or use it to train their models. Apple's UK guide to using ChatGPT with Apple Intelligence has the full setup steps.

Each time Siri considers using ChatGPT, it stops and asks your permission, so you can always decline.

Prefer a standalone ChatGPT app for your own conversations rather than going through Siri? Our step-by-step ChatGPT setup guide covers the free version on iPhone.

Six Things to Try This Week

Here are six practical things to do with Apple Intelligence today. Read them, pick one, and try it.

• Tidy a formal message: In Mail or Messages, type a reply, tap Writing Tools above the keyboard, and select Make More Professional. Useful for messages to GPs, councils, or solicitors.
• Find a photo by description: Open Photos, tap the search bar, and type "garden in summer" or "birthday cake". The AI will search your library.
• Ask Siri about an appointment: Say "When is my hospital appointment?" and Siri will check your Calendar and recent emails for the answer.
• Summarise a long email: Open a long email, select all the text, tap Writing Tools, and choose Summarise.
• Ask ChatGPT through Siri: Once you have connected ChatGPT (see above), say to Siri: "Ask ChatGPT: what are the best National Trust gardens near Bath?"
• Shorten a letter draft: In Notes, type a rough version of a letter (say to your energy supplier), highlight it, tap Writing Tools, and choose Make Shorter.

What UK Users Should Know About Privacy

Apple Intelligence handles your data more carefully than most AI tools, but there are two things worth knowing before you rely on it heavily.

Most features stay on your device. Writing Tools and photo searches run on your iPhone's own chip. Nothing leaves your phone. Apple calls this on-device processing, and it covers the vast majority of Apple Intelligence tasks.

Some complex tasks go to Apple's servers. For more demanding requests, Apple uses a system called Private Cloud Compute. Your request goes to Apple's servers and the answer comes back to your device. Apple says this data is not stored and is not accessible to Apple staff. Independent security researchers have been given access to verify those claims, which is a higher level of transparency than most technology companies offer. You can see a log of how recent requests were handled under Settings, then Privacy and Security, then Apple Intelligence Report.

The ChatGPT connection is where data leaves Apple's systems. If you use it, your request goes to OpenAI. For a detailed breakdown of what is shared and what it means in practice for UK users, our Apple Intelligence privacy guide goes through both companies' legal disclosures line by line.

A change to iCloud encryption in 2025 is worth knowing about. In February 2025, Apple removed a feature called Advanced Data Protection from UK users. This had previously let UK Apple customers protect their photos, notes, iCloud backups, and voice memos with end-to-end encryption, meaning only they could read those files. Apple removed the feature after a UK government legal order required access to encrypted data. Apple's UK support page confirms that new UK users can no longer enable it. Your iCloud photos, notes, and backups now use standard encryption, where Apple holds the encryption keys. This does not change how Apple Intelligence works day to day, but it is relevant context if you store sensitive documents on iCloud.

For a broader look at what never to share with any AI tool, see our guide on what not to tell an AI.

What Apple Intelligence Cannot Do Yet

Apple Intelligence is genuinely useful. But a few honest points:

• It cannot act on your behalf without asking. Siri will confirm with you before sending any message or making any booking.
• It makes mistakes. Writing suggestions sometimes miss what you were trying to say. Notification summaries occasionally mangle a message's meaning. Treat suggestions as a first draft, not a finished product.
• It cannot access bank accounts or government websites. Those integrations do not exist in mainstream UK apps yet.
• A more capable Siri is coming. At its developer conference in June 2026, Apple demonstrated a more conversational Siri that can search across your messages, emails, and photos more intelligently. It is in early testing and not yet available as a public release. This guide will be updated when it reaches UK users.

Want to go further with all the main AI tools, not just iPhone? Our WellWired Academy course covers ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini, and more in short, practical lessons designed for people who have never used AI before.

How to Use AI on iPad

Got an iPad with a compatible chip? Apple Intelligence works there too with the same features. Our guide to using AI on iPad covers the same steps with iPad-specific screenshots and is currently one of the most read pages on this site.

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