Apple’s next-generation personal assistant might be coming sometime soon, but Siri’s feature set has gotten a lot more diverse with the introduction of Apple Intelligence in iOS 18. As of that update, when Siri is activated, a rainbow of colors appears around the border of your iPhone screen.
It might seem like a silly thing to prioritize, but Siri’s new look isn’t just a cosmetic change. As part of Apple Intelligence features like Notification Summary, Genmoji, and the Clean Up tool in Photos, Siri includes quite a few new features.
But if you don’t see this colorful makeover, you might still need some help activating it. If you recently upgraded to iOS 18.3 and you’re not sure how to get Siri’s new glow, here’s how to activate it.
It’s possible that you need a newer phone (like one of the best iPhones of 2025) for it to work properly. Most likely, you’ll just need to do a quick software update.
Your iPhone might not be able to run Apple Intelligence
The latest system update is for all devices from the iPhone XS and later, but that doesn’t mean everyone will get Apple Intelligence. In fact, since much of the AI computation is done on the device itself, only a few models can currently run the new technologies.
Apple Intelligence will also run on Macs and iPads with M-series processors, as well as the latest iPad Mini (which is powered by the A17 Pro chip).
If you have any of these models, you’ll see the new glossy look when you invoke Siri. On a Mac, the Siri search field has the same effect instead of the entire screen edges. If you have another model, you’ll see the same Siri orb.
You may need to re-enable Apple Intelligence
When the first Apple Intelligence features arrived in iOS 18.1, iPadOS 18.1, and macOS Sequoia 15.1, they didn’t turn on automatically. You used to have to sign up and wait a few hours or days to get access.
The latest updates (iOS 18.3.2, iPadOS 18.3, and macOS Sequoia 15.3) now enable Apple Intelligence automatically, even though it’s still considered a beta feature. If you never signed up for the waitlist, or this is your first jump from iOS 17 to iOS 18, for example, Apple Intelligence should be on and the new Siri interface should appear.
However, if you had Apple Intelligence on your device at some point but you turned it off, the latest updates don’t flip the switch to re-enable it. Go to Settings > Apple Intelligence & Siri and make sure the Apple Intelligence toggle is on.
Additionally, if you’ve switched the language setting to something else — talking to Siri in another language can be more fun than Duolingo — selecting one of the English variants above doesn’t automatically re-enable the new Siri. But there’s an easy workaround: In Settings > Apple Intelligence & Siri, turn Apple Intelligence off and then on again. Then restart the iPhone. This will re-download the required language model.
Support for other languages is coming later this year. A footnote on Apple’s Apple Intelligence page clarifies: “Additional features and languages will be available in April, with more languages and platforms to come throughout the year. Supported languages in 2025 include Chinese, English (India, Singapore), French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish, and Vietnamese.”
For more on the latest system update’s new stuff, here’s the right way to back up your iPhone before installing iOS 18.3 and the eight settings you should change first in iOS 18.3. And don’t miss my five (plus one beta) favorite Apple Intelligence features.