The camera on your iPhone or iPad can use Visual Intelligence to describe objects in its view. This option isn’t available on a Mac, and works differently on an Apple Vision Pro.
Apple doesn’t label Visual Intelligence as a distinct element from Siri in iOS 27 and iPadOS 27. Rather, when you use Siri with the camera, you’re using Visual Intelligence, no matter which method you use to bring it up.
Invoke Visual Intelligence
- Camera Control: Click and hold the Camera Control button on iPhones with that hardware button.
- Action button: Customize the Action button (Settings > Action Button) to Visual Intelligence.
- Lock Screen: Customize the Lock Screen to add a Visual Intelligence button in one of the slots at the bottom. (On the Lock Screen, touch and hold on the screen, tap Customize, then remove an existing button or add Visual Intelligence into an empty space.)
- Control Center: You can use an existing Visual Intelligence button. Swipe down from the upper-right corner, and tap Visual Intelligence.
Use Siri AI mode
First, use any method to invoke Visual Intelligence: Camera Control, the Action button, Control Center, or a Lock Screen button. For instance, swipe down from the upper-right corner to tap the Visual Intelligence button in Control Center.
Starting in iOS 27 and iPadOS 27, you can also open the Camera app and slide the mode selector, set by default to Photo, to Siri. Whichever method you choose, the Camera app opens to the Siri mode. Visual Intelligence can offer suggestions for what it can do even before you tap the shutter button, which are covered below. But let’s start with the most obvious action: tapping the Shutter button, which is replaced with a Siri icon.
Starting in iOS 27 and iPadOS 27, you will see the new Siri icon everywhere the Apple Intelligence icon previously appeared. This includes the Visual Intelligence button in Control Center—the Siri icon set within four corner elements representing camera focus. Yes, even though it opens to Siri in Camera, it’s called Visual Intelligence.
When you tap the Siri shutter, your device performs what is probably a gratuitous animation of scanning the image. It’s fun to look at, and covers the period of time that analysis is actually happening, distracting you from thinking about that. So—OK? Then it provides information, which can come in two forms:
- Identify the primary object on screen. A Kennedy half dollar is identified, and the information correctly shows its date, 1998, and provides specific details about that issue.
- Present a series of potential actions based on its analysis. For instance, we put a business card and a membership card in its field of vision, tapped the shutter, and it suggested adding a pass to Wallet, adding a Contact, and provided various bits of the address information.
- Do both! Pointing at a couple of objects, Visual Intelligence provided a summary of information about both. Among the button options are Add Pass to Wallet, make a call, send an email, and map. Tapping Add Pass to Wallet brings up the new pass creator.
What follows next are the kinds of tasks Apple has called out or, we’ve found in testing, that Siri presents a button based on.
Take actions based on what camera sees
When you point your camera at something in Siri mode that Visual Intelligence instantly recognizes as being in a certain category, the Camera app displays a yellow button, such as Split Bill with Apple Cash. This is quite similar to how Camera in Photo mode recognizes a QR code and presents an option, such as opening a URL or authenticating via passkey. It’s just much, much more extensive with Visual Intelligence.
If it doesn’t automatically recognize an object, tap the Siri shutter button, and the analysis described above it performed. That often triggers the appropriate button to appear when live analysis fails.
The bill is the richest of these, and has its own walkthrough.
Learn about nutrition
Point Siri at food, and it tells you something about its nutritional value. In our testing, we’ve found that Look Up Nutrition is quite broad, offering insights you might naturally assume when looking at a product without involving any kind of artificial intelligence. For instance, it doesn’t provide the U.S. Nutrition Facts (already printed on packaged products), nor does it give detailed information of any kind. We expect Apple wants to do more here, given that there’s so much room to provide people with information.
Add a card to Wallet
Point at a membership or other kind of card that Wallet understands, and Siri offers to add it to Wallet. That is covered in how to turn any card into a Wallet pass.
Parse a business card
Siri recognizes business cards and can structure data extracted from them to insert into Contacts.
Import multiple calendar events
There is a special kind of drudgery in having to enter information manually that you know very well a computer should be able to process for you. For instance, imagine being presented with a school calendar brought home by a child on a piece of paper that is not, somehow, also a shared Calendar or downloadable CalDAV file. (We know this is inconceivable in the modern era, but bear with us.) Visual Intelligence solves this for you, starting in iOS 27 and iPadOS 27.
Point Siri at a list of events, and it translates them into calendar entries. Your mileage may vary on exactly what’s extracted, but Visual Intelligence appears to pull out salient date, time, and location information. It makes an assumption that all events are one hour long unless a time range appears.