Your device is indexing...

To make Siri AI work each of your Apple devices need to perform an indexing step. This is such a key element of allowing that feature to work that Apple are now doing the indexing in the latest iOS 26 versions, so that users don't have to wait a few days after they've upgraded to iOS 27 to use one of it's tentpole features.

If you have an iPad and a Mac and an iPhone then each device has to create its own index. There's no sharing of that data between devices through iCloud or otherwise.

But Apple is also rumoured to be releasing several new home devices, all of which have been waiting for Siri AI to actually work as the hardware has been ready to go for a while.

So how do they all work if your index is unique to each device?

It'll be fine if you're a user of Apple Notes, Calendar and Reminders. I'm sure that device will be able to pull down that data from iCloud and create an index from it.

But what about third-party apps? If app intents and opting into Spotlight indexing gets your data to appear in the index on your iPhone, how does that work on a home device if it doesn't also have access to the same apps?

Or are we destined to live in a world where I can ask my phone a question about something stored in my choice of non-Apple notes app, but I can't ask my smart speaker?

Back to cooking my pasta then.