Apple WWDC 2026: AI-Powered Updates Across Apps

Apple WWDC 2026: AI-Powered Updates Across Apps">

Apple today announced a slate of new Apple Intelligence updates across its apps at WWDC 2026, including tab management for Safari, one-tap password updating, cross-app context awareness, and AI-powered shortcut creation via natural language. Safari is getting AI-powered tab management that groups tabs by topic automatically. It can also suggest and add related tabs to an existing group.

The company is also adding a page monitor to Safari that notifies you when it detects changes — useful for tracking prices, news stories, or anything time-sensitive. Apple said Safari can also create a custom extension using text prompts to modify a web page, a capability that until now required a developer. The company is adding a way to update compromised passwords with one tap, with Apple handling the process on your behalf through AI and Safari — no manual login required.

Messages is getting AI-powered reply suggestions and a new ability to surface photos based on a text description, so you can find what you’re looking for without scrolling. In Calendar, users can now type in natural language to create an event — just mention the people and the time, and Apple Intelligence handles the rest. Perhaps the most consequential update for power users: Apple said the Phone app can now pull context from other apps like Mail and Messages mid-call.

If you’re on the phone with an airline, for instance, it can surface your flight details from your email in real time. It’s Apple’s answer to Google’s similar “Magic Cue” feature, and suggests that the AI assistant wars are increasingly being fought at the operating system level — with your personal data as the differentiator. The company is also overhauling Shortcuts with AI-powered creation.

Rather than manually stitching together a workflow step by step, users can now describe what they want in plain language and the app builds the shortcut automatically — effectively bringing vibe-coding to the mainstream iPhone user. Image Playground is also getting an update, with easier natural-language editing and a new model capable of generating more photorealistic images. Users can tap, circle, or brush to select and edit individual objects, and can now adjust the dimensions of any generated image to fit different formats — a feature developers will likely use immediately once Apple opens image generation to third parties via a new API.

The app is also gaining the ability to generate wallpapers and contact posters. Finally, Apple is updating its Photos cleanup tool with improved infill and higher-quality object removal, and adding an AI-powered expansion tool that can extend the edges of a photo. A new feature called Spatial Reframing lets you reposition the subject or objects within a frame — using on-device spatial models combined with an image generation model to fill in the new perspective convincingly.