Siri is the laughingstock of AI, but I still find these features useful

I remember when the iPhone 4S came out… I was in my last year in high school, and I thought the future had just come knocking at the door. Who was on the other side? Siri. Apple made my 18-year-old brain believe in the unbelievable — smart, personal assistants were here and everything was about to change!

Of course, we all know that didn’t turn out to be the case, and even though it was the first mainstream voice virtual assistant on a major smartphone — and the best one at the time — it was far from perfect.

More than a decade has passed since then, and now we even have natural-sounding AI assistants that we can access straight from our phones. Unfortunately, however, Siri doesn’t even register when it comes to those, often (rightfully) mocked for how incapable it is.

But in the face of all this mockery, I’ve caught myself surprised on several occasions by Siri’s capabilities, however limited they may be. So, here are these surprising instances, or at least moments where I found some use from the underdog in this voice assistant race.

Not that surprising, but definitely my most used one

My number one use of Siri (yes, besides asking for the weather) is asking it for a track that’s currently playing. This happens when I’m driving, in a bar or restaurant, or even when I’m streaming songs from the phone itself but can’t reach it at exactly that moment.

And since we are on the topic of music, I also tell Siri to add said song I liked to my favorites. This one is especially useful when I’m running and playing random songs on my “Discover” playlist, as it can be a hassle to do so more than once or twice manually.

Specific percentages

Did you know that you can tell Siri a specific percentage of brightness and sound volume you want? I didn’t, which is why I was pleasantly surprised when I tested it out.

I was in a situation where I had to place the phone between the steering wheel and the dashboard, so I couldn’t reach and adjust these settings by hand. So, I decided to try Siri out, and told it to set the brightness to 80% — she did. “Wow,” I thought to myself, “Why no try the volume too?” So I told it to set the volume to 20%, and she did that too.

Helpful tools

These are the most basic things an assistant should be capable of nowadays, but the bar has been set pretty low when it comes to Siri, so I still found them surprising and genuinely useful.

• I often ask Siri to convert units and currencies, and I also use it for percentages and other simple mathematical calculations.
• Another “helpful tool” I typically use is setting reminders. That’s nothing complicated either, but I was surprised that Siri managed to set up a recurring reminder at a specific hour. Location and context based reminders are also criminally underused, like “Remind me to talk to my boss when go to work.” Or “Remind me to ask about the appointment when I message Mom.”
• Using Siri as a dictionary — I do this sporadically when I am reading, especially if it is a book on a subject I am not familiar with. I also do this to double-check spelling sometimes, or when I am unsure of the exact meaning of a word.
• I also use Siri’s ability to read articles quite occasionally, mostly when I want to focus on doing something else. It is a great way to turn written content into a sort of podcast.
• “Hey Siri, remember where I parked my car.” Yes — I can’t tell you how useful this feature is when you are in an unfamiliar location. Of course, you can do the same in Google Maps, but I find that it’s easier to remember to save my parking when I don’t have to stop in one place and do it manually.
• I am not the biggest fan of the Apple Health app and the way its menu is structured. When I found out that I can log things like my weight and medicine through Siri it made the whole process much less cumbersome.

A smarter Siri may finally be close

Apple is preparing one of the biggest Siri upgrades ever, according to one of the most reputable Apple insiders, Mark Gurman.

With iOS 26.4, Apple is reportedly rolling out a fully re-architected version of Siri, rebuilt from the ground up instead of patched on top of old code. Internally, Apple is testing a chatbot system called Veritas as the foundation for the new assistant.

Siri will also tie much deeper into Apple Intelligence, with Vision Pro lead Mike Rockwell now in charge of the overhaul. Apple is even working on AI-driven Siri “agents,” including a health-focused one planned for next fall, hinting that Siri may eventually act more like a personalized coach.

Apple is also testing a framework that lets third-party assistants use the iPhone’s side button in certain regions. That change hints at the start of a more flexible, more modern approach to voice assistants on the iPhone.

If these upgrades land as expected, Siri could finally shift from being the underdog to something genuinely smarter in the next year (finally).

What about you?

Do you have any examples of Siri surprising you? If so, what were they? Feel free to also share what you want Apple to improve Siri with once the new rumored update comes with iOS 26.4.

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