What Is Apple Intelligence on Mac? How to Use It in 2026

Apple Intelligence is the set of AI features built into macOS. On macOS 27 Golden Gate it rewrites and proofreads text in almost any app, summarizes email and notifications, makes images and Genmoji, and powers Siri AI, a new conversational Siri in beta. It needs a Mac with M1 or later, a supported language, and it costs nothing extra today.

If you've updated to macOS 27 and found a new Siri app, a Writing Tools item in your right-click menus and summaries where your notifications used to be, that's Apple Intelligence. Apple spreads it across many apps instead of giving it one home, so it's easy to miss the parts that are actually useful. This guide covers what it is, whether your Mac can run it, and how to use each feature worth your time, with the exact menus from Apple's own guides.

What is Apple Intelligence on a Mac?

Apple Intelligence is Apple's name for the generative AI features in macOS, iOS and iPadOS. On a Mac it shows up inside the apps you already use rather than as one separate chatbot: Writing Tools in most text fields, summaries in Mail, Messages and Notifications, Image Playground and Genmoji, smarter Photos editing, and Siri AI. Apple's getting-started page says it becomes available automatically on eligible devices when you update to the 27.0 software releases.

Many requests run entirely on the Mac itself. For heavier ones, Apple Intelligence uses Private Cloud Compute, larger models on Apple silicon servers, and Apple says only the data relevant to your request is sent and that it "is not stored or made accessible to Apple," per its privacy page. ChatGPT is a separate, optional extension that you switch on yourself (more on that below).

So it's a layer over macOS, not an app you open. The features that earn their keep are the quiet ones: Proofread before a send, a two-line summary of a long thread, a notification stack that tells me which message actually matters.

Does my Mac support Apple Intelligence?

Apple Intelligence on macOS 27 runs on any Mac with M1 or later and on the MacBook Neo (A18 Pro). Intel Macs can't use it. Your Mac's language and Siri's language also have to be set to the same supported language, according to Apple's requirements page and its Siri AI guide.

The sources for that table are Apple's getting-started page, published November 5, 2026, and the Siri AI guide. Apple's macOS 27 page lists the Macs that can install the update: MacBook Neo (2026), MacBook Air and MacBook Pro with Apple silicon (2020 and later), iMac with Apple silicon (2021 and later), Mac mini with Apple silicon (2020 and later), Mac Studio (2022 and later) and Mac Pro with Apple silicon (2023).

Two limits are easy to miss. Some features, like Suggestions in Mail and personalized Smart Reply in Messages, are English only. And the features that run on Apple's servers, including Siri AI, Image Playground and the advanced photo tools, have daily usage limits; Apple says "expanded access to such features will be available for a fee in the future" (Apple). For the EU, Apple says Siri AI won't be available at first on iOS, iPadOS and watchOS, and its Mac guide doesn't list macOS in that exclusion, so Apple hasn't said either way for Macs in the EU (Apple).

How to turn on Siri AI on your Mac

Siri AI is switched on from System Settings: click Siri in the sidebar and click Try Siri AI (Beta). The rest of Apple Intelligence needs no switch: it arrives with the macOS 27 update on an eligible Mac. These are the steps from Apple's Siri AI guide:

1. Click the Apple logo at the top left and open System Settings.
2. Scroll the sidebar until you find Siri, and click it.
3. If Siri is off, click Turn On Siri.
4. Click Try Siri AI (Beta).
5. Follow the onscreen instructions.

Siri AI is a conversational assistant: you can ask follow-up questions, have it find things in your photos, email and notes, and take actions in apps like Messages, Music and Reminders, according to Apple's macOS 27 page. Your conversations live in a new Siri app, which syncs them to your other devices on one Apple Account. In System Settings > Siri, under the Siri app settings, you choose whether it opens to recent conversations or a new one and how long conversations are kept (Apple). Pick 30 days or 1 year and older conversations are permanently deleted.

The first thing I asked it was to dig up the hotel confirmation a client had emailed me weeks earlier, which I'd normally hunt for in Mail search. That's the kind of request it's built for: something you know is on your Mac but can't place.

If you'd rather not use any of this, Apple lets you switch Siri and individual features off; our guide to disabling Apple Intelligence on a Mac has every switch.

How to use Writing Tools on a Mac

Writing Tools let you proofread, rewrite or summarize text in almost any Mac app. Select the text, Control-click it, choose Writing Tools, then Show Writing Tools. Steps from Apple's Writing Tools guide:

1. Select the text you wrote, in Mail, Notes, Pages, a browser text field or most other apps.
2. Control-click the selection and choose Writing Tools > Show Writing Tools.
3. Pick what you want: Proofread for grammar and wording, Rewrite with a Friendly, Professional or Concise tone, Summarize or Key Points, or type the change you want in the field at the top.
4. Click Done to keep the result.

Proofread is where I'd start. Before a proposal goes out I select the whole draft and run it, then read every suggested change rather than accepting them in bulk, because a proofreader that "fixes" a product name or a client's spelling of their own company is worse than none. Apple says the same in plainer words on that page: check important information for accuracy.

Concise is the other one I keep using. A status update I typed up after a long day came back tighter with nothing important lost, and the people reading it skim on their phones anyway. On macOS 27 Apple also lists automatic proofreading for the Mac in its feature list, and with Siri AI you can ask Siri to draft text or give feedback on what you've written; in Messages and Mail, Apple says it can match your style and tone (Apple).

How to use ChatGPT with Apple Intelligence on a Mac

ChatGPT is an optional extension, set up under System Settings > Siri. With it enabled you can use it to compose text in Writing Tools, pick a style in Image Playground, or answer questions through Siri. You don't need a ChatGPT account. Steps from Apple's ChatGPT guide:

1. Open System Settings and click Siri in the sidebar.
2. Click ChatGPT, click Set Up and follow the onscreen steps. With Siri AI (Beta), click Set Up Extensions, click ChatGPT, then turn on Use Extension.
3. Choose whether to sign in with a ChatGPT account. Sign in only if you want your requests saved to your ChatGPT history.

To write a first draft with it, Control-click an empty text field, choose Show Writing Tools, click Compose, describe what you want and press Return (Apple). Apple says you're asked before any of your information is shared with ChatGPT, your IP address is hidden from it, but your general location is provided. One catch: the Confirm Requests switch, which controls that prompt in Siri's extension settings, isn't available with Siri AI (Apple). The extension also only works in regions where ChatGPT itself is offered (Apple).

How to summarize email, messages and notifications

Apple Intelligence summarizes in three places on a Mac: Mail, Messages and your notifications, all listed in Apple's feature list. Notification summaries have their own setting, Summarize Notifications in System Settings > Notifications, as Apple's notifications guide describes:

1. Open System Settings and click Notifications in the sidebar.
2. Click Summarize notifications and make sure Summarize Notifications is on.
3. To pick apps one by one, go back, select an app under Application Notifications and switch its summaries on or off.

The same page covers the Reduce Interruptions Focus (System Settings > Focus), which reads incoming notifications, lets the important ones through and holds the rest. After a day of back-to-back calls I'd rather read four summarized stacks than forty banners, though I still open anything from my manager in full. A summary is a guess about what matters, and it can be wrong about the one line that does.

Mail has more AI than just summaries on macOS 27: Smart Reply, Priority Messages and one-click Suggestions. Our Apple Mail AI guide walks through each one, and if you want to condense web pages and PDFs as well, see how to summarize text on a Mac.

How to make images and Genmoji with Image Playground

Image Playground is a Mac app that makes original images from a description, a photo or people in your Photos library, and Genmoji are custom emoji you describe. Both run on Apple Intelligence and count toward its daily usage limits.

Create an image

1. Open Image Playground and click New Image.
2. Type a description. Optionally bring in as many as three people from Photos with Choose Person, start from a photo, or set Square, Portrait or Landscape.
3. Click Style and choose Any Style, Animation, Illustration or Sketch, or choose ChatGPT and describe the style you want.

To change an image later, click it in the gallery and describe the edit: a new background, a different style or something added (Apple). Apple's guide also notes that the recommended age for realistic images is 18+. In my experience it's most useful for the small, throwaway visuals: a header for a team offsite invite, a slide divider. Anything with a brand on it still goes to a designer.

Create a Genmoji

1. While typing in any app, press Fn-E (the Globe key and E) to open the Character Viewer.
2. Click Genmoji at the top right.
3. Describe it, start from an existing emoji, or pick up to three people from Photos.
4. Click Add. The Genmoji is saved with your stickers.

Those steps are from Apple's Genmoji guide.

What's new in Apple Intelligence on macOS 27

macOS 27 Golden Gate adds Siri AI in beta, Visual Intelligence on the Mac, smarter Safari tabs, natural-language Shortcuts and more advanced photo editing. Apple lists these on its macOS 27 page and in its feature list:

• Visual Intelligence: press Command-Shift-Space bar to pick a window, or Command-Shift-6 for part of the screen, then choose Ask Siri, Search Image or a suggested action (Apple). Apple's macOS 27 page says it needs a supported English variant.
• Safari: tabs grouped by topic, and Notify Me alerts when a page changes, such as a price drop.
• Shortcuts: describe a shortcut in plain words and it's built for you (usage limits may apply).
• Photos: Clean Up, Extend and Reframe; open a photo, click Edit, then Tools (Apple).
• Calendar and Reminders: create events and reminders by describing them.
• Finder: suggested names for files and folders.
• Call Context: relevant details from your apps when you call a business.
• Siri voice: choose and tune Siri's voice, in English, on Macs with M3 or later and at least 12 GB of memory (Apple).

Visual Intelligence is the one I didn't expect to use. I had a PDF of a vendor quote open and asked Siri, through Visual Intelligence, which line items had changed since the last version I'd been sent. Treat the answer as a pointer to where to look, not as the final word.

What Apple Intelligence can't do on a Mac

Apple Intelligence works inside Apple's apps and the text fields of others, so it's limited by what each app shares with it. Apple's examples for Siri AI are your photos, email, notes and apps like Messages and Reminders; Apple doesn't describe it working through a web app you use in the browser, and none of it runs on an Intel Mac. A few more limits worth knowing before you rely on it:

• Languages and regions: some features are English only, and Siri AI starts in six languages (Apple).
• Daily limits: server-side features cap out, with paid expanded access promised later (Apple).
• Accuracy: Apple's own guides say to check important information, and summaries can drop the detail that changes the answer (Apple).
• Beta status: Siri AI is labeled beta on macOS 27, so expect rough edges and changes in point releases (Apple).

My working rule is simple: let Apple Intelligence draft, sort and summarize, and keep the final read for myself on anything with a number, a date or a commitment in it.