Apple is set to change mobile artificial intelligence (AI) with the upcoming release of iOS 26, featuring the integration of OpenAI’s latest GPT-5 model into its Apple Intelligence system.
This upgrade, expected to roll out with iOS 26, iPadOS 26, and macOS Tahoe 26 alongside the launch of the iPhone 17 series in mid-september 2025, promises to reshape how users interact with AI-powered assistants on their devices.
Currently, Apple Intelligence uses OpenAI’s GPT-4o, but GPT-5 brings a new level of sophistication, especially with improvements in reasoning, multimodal processing, and its overall performance.
What GPT-5 brings to Apple devices
GPT-5 introduces a unified architecture with a real-time router that dynamically selects the best AI model for each query, whether it is simple or complex. This seamless switching enhances efficiency and user experience, and it removes the need for users to determine or choose between different AI models manually.
Performance-wise, GPT-5 delivers major improvements like, 45% fewer factual errors compared to previous models, 80% reduction in hallucinations during complex reasoning, a near-95% accuracy on advanced math problems, and a superior coding benchmark results compared to its peers.
In addition to this is the multimodality feature that comes with GPT-5. The AI model integrates text, image, and audio processing simultaneously, and it also helps with deep visual reasoning and video frame understanding. This will support Apple Intelligence’s Visual Intelligence feature and Camera Control, as it enables smarter, context-aware assistance that involves the physical world.
Enhanced Apple Intelligence experience in iOS 26
With GPT-5’s integration into iOS 26 and Apple Intelligence comes many transformations and improvements. Some of these improved features, according to Apple, include:
- Siri Enhancement: Siri will leverage GPT-5’s deep reasoning when handling complex requests, and provide more accurate and insightful responses where Apple’s own AI systems fall short
- Writing Tools: GPT-5 promises and will help users compose, refine, and rewrite text effortlessly through system-wide writing tools. As such, writing tools across the Apple Intelligence system will benefit from enhanced text generation and editing capabilities, with GPT-5 assisting users to compose, refine, and/or rewrite content.
- Visual Intelligence: The Camera Control and image search features will leverage GPT-5’s advanced multimodal processing to analyze objects, places, and visual information with greater depth. This will make image searches and object recognition faster and more precise, and users also can ask more detailed questions about their surroundings and receive richer, contextually aware responses.
Also, Apple’s privacy-centric approach remains intact. The GPT-5 integration into Apple Intelligence ensures that user IP addresses remain obscured, and OpenAI is prevented from storing user interactions unless users explicitly link and consent to an OpenAI account connection.
Impact and future of mobile AI defaults
The introduction of GPT-5 into Apple Intelligence is indicative of a major transformation in mobile AI defaults, a system where artificial intelligence technologies are integrated into smartphones and other mobile devices to enhance various features and user experiences.
For Apple, rather than relying solely on the usual on-device AI (e.g., face detection, speech recognition), the tech giant’s new approach marries cloud-based foundation models (GPT-5) with its on-device intelligence. By setting a new standard in the industry, this approach balances cutting-edge AI capabilities with user privacy safeguards, something Apple is very passionate about.
By adopting and integrating the most advanced model currently available, which leads in various benchmarks in reasoning and coding tasks, this move positions Apple competitively against Google’s Gemini-powered Android AI and other AI assistants. With enhanced reasoning, multimodal capabilities, and seamless user experience improvements, Apple is setting a new benchmark for AI assistance on personal devices.
This approach also complements the new Linwood and Glenwood projects that Apple is about to take on to upgrade its voice assistant Siri.
As the AI landscape continues to evolve, Apple’s decision to embrace partnerships with OpenAI raises the bar across the tech ecosystem, and it signifies Apple’s entry into the intense AI arms race.
