At WWDC 2025, Apple unveiled new features for Apple Intelligence including upgrades to Genmoji and Image Playground arriving with iOS 26 and other updated operating systems. Apple integrated ChatGPT into its Image Playground, allowing for the creation of generative AI images within the feature. In Messages, Image Playground will be able to generate new backgrounds for group chats. Apple is also adding live translation to its Phone app, as well as Messages and FaceTime. On audio-only calls, Apple Intelligence will generate a real-time voiced translation, while FaceTime will display live captions. Apple Intelligence updates span the iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch and Apple Vision Pro.

With Messages, on-device AI will translate communiques into the recipient’s language of choice. When they respond, each message will be instantly translated into your language, Apple explains in a newsroom post. In FaceTime, you’ll see live captions as the person you’re chatting with speaks, and over a phone call, Apple Intelligence will generate a voiced translation.

“Separately, Genmoji will allow users to combine two emoji from the Unicode library to create new characters,” writes Engadget, noting that “you might merge the sloth and light bulb emoji if you want to poke fun at yourself for being slow to understand a joke.”

Visual Intelligence is also getting an upgrade. In addition to working with the iPhone camera, it can scan items that display onscreen. “Like Genmoji, Visual Intelligence will also benefit from deeper integration with ChatGPT, allowing you to ask the chatbot questions about what you see,” Engadget reports. You can also “search Google, Etsy and other supported apps to find images or products that might be a visual match.”

Meanwhile, the next iteration of the iPhone operating system, iOS 26, “features a complete redesign with Apple’s new Liquid Glass design language along with updates to apps across the platform,” The Verge reports. New features include a call screening function that “can answer calls on your behalf and sit on calls on your behalf while you’re on hold.”

Apple is also switching its OS updates to reflect the year (hence iOS 26, rather than the iOS 19 that would have been the sequential follow up).

Several OS elements are getting tweaked. You can now change the size of the lockscreen time display, and many controls are hidden on the Camera app for a cleaner look and feel. “In Safari, webpages are edge-to-edge, and the tab bar floats over your content,” The Verge says.

New iOS 26 features will show up in CarPlay, Apple Music, Maps, and Wallet, “as well as Apple Games, a brand-new app that gives players a single destination for all their games,” Apple explains in an iOS 26 announcement.

Related:
Apple’s New Software Focuses on Design Aesthetics Over AI, The New York Times, 6/9/25
Apple Expands ChatGPT Deal and Mimics Google in AI Comeback Attempt, Bloomberg, 6/9/25
To Fix Apple Intelligence, Apple Needs to Be Honest About Its Capabilities, Engadget, 6/9/25
iPadOS 26 Makes Apple’s Tablets More Like Macs, Engadget, 6/9/25
Apple Music’s AutoMix Feature Is Making Me Rethink My Spotify Subscription, CNET, 6/9/25