WWDC 2026 Preview: Gemini-Powered Siri, iOS 27 and More

Apple's WWDC 2026 keynote begins today, June 8, at 10 a.m. Pacific. The headline: a rebuilt, Gemini-powered Siri expected to debut in beta, plus iOS 27, macOS 27, and an Extensions system that lets users pick ChatGPT, Gemini, or Claude for Apple Intelligence. It is also Tim Cook's final WWDC keynote as CEO.¹²

TL;DR

WWDC 2026 runs June 8–12, with the keynote streaming today at 10 a.m. PT on the Apple TV app, apple.com, and YouTube.¹² The main event is Siri: Apple confirmed in a January 2026 joint statement with Google that the next generation of Apple Foundation Models will be based on Gemini, and Bloomberg reported the deal is worth roughly $1 billion per year for a custom 1.2-trillion-parameter model.³⁴ New reporting from June 3–4 says the revamped Siri's heaviest queries will run on Nvidia Blackwell B200 GPUs in Google Cloud — not Apple's own Private Cloud Compute servers — with a full launch targeted for September alongside iOS 27.⁵⁶ Expect the new Siri in beta first, an Extensions system for third-party AI models, a stability-focused iOS 27, and no new hardware.¹⁷

What you'll learn

• When the WWDC 2026 keynote starts and how to watch it
• What's confirmed versus rumored about the Gemini-powered Siri
• How the new Siri's Google Cloud and Nvidia architecture reportedly works
• What Extensions are, and how Claude and ChatGPT fit in
• What else is expected in iOS 27 and macOS 27, and which iPhones may lose support

When is the WWDC 2026 keynote and how to watch

The keynote starts Monday, June 8, 2026 at 10:00 a.m. PT (1:00 p.m. ET), streamed on the Apple TV app, Apple's website, and YouTube.¹² The conference runs through June 12, and Apple typically releases the first developer betas of its new operating systems — iOS 27, iPadOS 27, macOS 27, watchOS 27, tvOS 27, and visionOS 27 — right after the presentation.¹

This keynote is also a milestone: Apple announced on April 20, 2026 that Tim Cook will step down as CEO on September 1, handing the role to hardware chief John Ternus and moving into a newly created executive chairman position.⁸ That makes today Cook's last WWDC keynote as chief executive.

The Gemini-powered Siri: what's confirmed, what's reported

Here is what is officially confirmed: in a January 12, 2026 joint statement, Apple and Google announced a multi-year collaboration under which "the next generation of Apple Foundation Models will be based on Google's Gemini models and cloud technology," powering future Apple Intelligence features including a more personalized Siri arriving this year.⁴⁹ The companies did not disclose financial terms.

The numbers come from Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, who reported in November 2025 that Apple would pay Google roughly $1 billion per year for a custom Gemini model with about 1.2 trillion parameters, using a mixture-of-experts design that activates only a subset of those parameters per query.³ Apple is also reportedly distilling Gemini into smaller models that run entirely on-device — we covered how that distillation pipeline works in Apple's Siri AI overhaul: the Gemini deal.

Siri's new architecture: Google Cloud and Nvidia Blackwell

The freshest reporting ahead of the keynote concerns where the new Siri actually runs. According to reports from June 3–4, 2026, the rebuilt Siri will send its most demanding requests to Google Cloud, where they will be processed on Nvidia Blackwell B200 GPUs rather than on Apple's own Apple Silicon servers.⁵⁶ Apple reportedly tested a modified Gemini on its in-house Private Cloud Compute system but found it ran too slowly.⁵

Privacy is the obvious question, and the reported answer is hardware-based confidential computing: Nvidia's feature encrypts data while it is being processed on the chips, and Google has said it will not receive Apple user data through the arrangement.⁵⁶ The January joint statement separately affirmed that Apple Intelligence will continue to run on Apple devices and Private Cloud Compute, so the published architecture is a hybrid: on-device models for local tasks, PCC for some cloud work, and Gemini on Google Cloud for the heaviest lifting.⁴⁵

Timing-wise, the new Siri is expected to be shown today and to ship in beta first, with the full launch reportedly targeted for September 2026 alongside iOS 27.¹⁵

What the new Siri is expected to look like

Leaks point to a redesigned interface where Siri expands from the top of the iPhone screen, growing the Dynamic Island into a text-entry prompt.¹ There have also been reports of a dedicated chatbot-style Siri app with conversational threads, the ability to handle multiple commands in a single sentence, on-screen awareness, and the long-promised personal context features.¹

That phrase — long-promised — is doing a lot of work. Apple first previewed the personalized Siri at WWDC in June 2024, officially delayed it in March 2025 ("It's going to take us longer than we thought"), and said at WWDC 2025 that it still wasn't ready.¹⁰¹¹ In May 2026, Apple agreed to pay $250 million to settle a class action over those delayed Siri features.¹² Today's keynote is Apple's chance to close that chapter.

Extensions: pick Claude, Gemini, or ChatGPT

iOS 27 is expected to introduce Extensions, a system that lets users choose which AI model powers Apple Intelligence features such as Siri, Writing Tools, and Image Playground — with Google Gemini, Anthropic's Claude, and OpenAI's ChatGPT among the options, configured from Settings.⁷¹³ Reports say third-party responses may even use distinct voices so you know which model answered.⁷

This expands on the ChatGPT integration Apple shipped in iOS 18.2 back in December 2024, which until now has been the only third-party model plugged into Siri.¹⁴ We broke down the leaked framework in detail in iOS 27 Extensions: pick Gemini, Claude, or ChatGPT.

iOS 27: a stability release with AI accents

Beyond Siri, iOS 27 is expected to be a stability-focused release — early reporting compared it to macOS Snow Leopard, prioritizing bug fixes, performance, and battery life over flashy features.¹ Expected changes include:

On compatibility: leaked lists suggest iOS 27 will require at least an A14 Bionic chip, which would drop the iPhone 11, 11 Pro, 11 Pro Max, and iPhone SE (2nd generation), making the iPhone 12 the oldest supported model.¹⁵ Apple has not confirmed this — the official list lands with today's announcement.

macOS 27 and the rest

macOS 27 — possibly named "Big Bear," if a pre-WWDC leak is right — will be the first macOS that requires Apple Silicon, since macOS 26 Tahoe was the last release to support Intel Macs.¹ Rosetta 2 will reportedly stick around in macOS 27 so Intel-era apps keep running, but macOS 28 is expected to drop full support, so developers have roughly a year to ship native Apple Silicon builds.¹ watchOS 27 is expected to bring a simplified Modular watch face and improved heart-rate tracking, while visionOS 27 adds a Wheelchair Control accessibility feature Apple already confirmed in May.¹

Don't expect new hardware

Apple is not expected to announce new Macs or iPads at WWDC 2026. Tim Cook's own remarks in May indicated no new Macs or iPads before September, with the ongoing memory and chip price crunch making hardware launches harder to commit to.¹ WWDC 2026 should be a software show.

The two-year road to today's keynote

Bottom line

WWDC 2026 is one of the most consequential Apple software events in years — not because of what Apple built, but because of what it licensed. A Gemini-powered Siri running partly on Nvidia GPUs in Google Cloud would have been unthinkable from the Apple of a few years ago; today it's the pragmatic move of a company two years late to its own AI promises and ready to ship. The keynote starts at 10 a.m. PT. We'll know by lunchtime whether the wait was worth it.