Apple announced Audio Intelligence, a suite of Apple Intelligence–powered features for the Apple Watch Series 12 and Apple Watch Ultra 4 that use the built-in microphone to help users catch missed moments in conversation and stay aware of important sounds.
The Audio Intelligence package includes four tools: Siri Recap, Live Rewind, automatic music identification via Shazam, and Sound Recognition. Together they generate conversation summaries, let users transcribe the last 15 seconds of speech, identify nearby music on the watch, and deliver sound alerts for events such as sirens or a crying baby.
How Audio Intelligence works
Siri Recap uses ambient listening to produce high-level notes from conversations — an Apple Intelligence–generated title, a summary and key points — all reviewable in the Siri app. Live Rewind lets users “go back in time for 15 seconds,” transcribing and displaying what was just said after a double press of the Digital Crown. The Shazam-powered music recognition automatically identifies songs playing nearby and surfaces the song title and artist on the Music Recognition widget in the Smart Stack. Sound Recognition brings sound alerts to the Apple Watch for people who are deaf or hard of hearing, listening for sirens, alarms, doorbells, a baby crying and more, even when the paired iPhone isn’t nearby.
Privacy, controls and system requirements
Apple says Siri Recap is opt-in and configurable: users control if and when Siri Recap takes notes, can set it to always listen or schedule it for specific contexts (for example, only at work or never at night), and can toggle it on or off from Control Center. Apple reiterated that none of the Audio Intelligence features create or store audio recordings; raw audio is processed in an isolated Secure Enclave on the S11 chip and deleted immediately after use.
Audio Intelligence and Siri AI both require an Apple Intelligence–enabled iPhone. Live Rewind and Siri Recap are limited to the iPhone 16 or later (excluding the iPhone 16e). The features will arrive in beta later this year, start in English with additional languages to follow, and will not be initially available in the EU.
