Your Apple TV 4K Just Got An Unexpected Big Upgrade

Following a few months of rumors, Apple finally unveiled its HomeView product, the second generation of the HomePod mini, several smart home accessories, and the fourth generation of Apple TV 4K. Apple is expanding Siri AI to the HomeView, HomePod mini 2, and Apple TV 4K, but more interestingly, the company announced that not only the fourth generation of Apple TV will get Siri AI, but also customers with the second- and third-generation models.

Siri AI is available as beta on these Apple TV 4K models in the U.S., Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand, Singapore, South Africa, and the U.K. in English. Still, what's happening is not that Apple is bringing Apple Intelligence to these set-top boxes out of magic. As a matter of fact, Apple explains that this is possible as long as the customer has "an Apple Intelligence-enabled iPhone," and that "Siri AI on Apple TV 4K can tap into a user's personal context to answer requests."

Since the new Apple TV 4K features the A19 chip, Apple has added added 8GB of RAM to the device, up from the previous generation's 4GB. iPhone users will be able to utilize a lot from the new Siri AI, as they can tell it to find a show or movie their friend texted them about, and it will actually go through the iPhone first, and then back to the TV for the full answer.

Apple touts that Siri AI will be a more capable and conversational assistant, as it will be able to tap personal context, search for information online, and take action inside apps to help you find your next TV show, movie, or documentary. Among the possibilities, users can ask questions like "What Apple TV shows won at the Emmy Awards this year?" or "Is this appropriate for a 15-year-old?" when you're unsure about watching a new TV show with your teenage kid.

With that, Apple is bringing some of the most important Siri AI features to all the supported tvOS 27 Apple TVs, and leaving behind others that don't make much sense, such as Genmoji creation, Image Playground, Writing Tools, or other Safari AI features — since the browser is still nowhere near available on the Apple TV platform. Still, customers can ask Siri on Apple TV about a podcast they've listened to before, a movie recommendation a friend sent a few weeks ago, and search for information that you'd like to know.

While it's unclear if Apple will limit those experiences to information related to entertainment and other Apple services like Fitness+, Arcade, and Music, the fact is that Siri AI on the iPhone, iPad, and Mac can help you with mostly anything, whether you want to split a bill, save information to your calendar, or get to know if a movie you just saw the trailer for has sessions near you. That said, Apple TV 4K (2nd gen or newer) can have a glimpse of the new Siri AI by updating their Apple TVs to the beta of tvOS 27.2, as the new model will be released in November.

Even though Apple hasn't updated its software page with tvOS 27 information, especially now that Siri AI is coming to the set-top box, Apple TV owners have gotten a few new features with the latest update, including an improved Liquid Glass experience, a revamped Podcasts app, smart downloads, and other changes. Not only does the Apple TV interface resemble more what Apple has been doing on iOS, iPadOS, and macOS, but it also added a new smart downloads feature, as well as AppleCare coverage details in tvOS settings. This brings improvements to the Control Center while making launch animations faster.

tvOS 27 also improved connectivity between the Apple TV and HomePod by making AirPlay more reliable. While Apple didn't specifically mention tvOS 27, it did mention that fixing bugs was one of the priorities of the new batch of software updates coming this fall during the WWDC 2026 keynote. The company also announced that Apple Music and Apple Podcasts apps got important updates, as Apple Music now supports hi-res lossless, AutoMix transitions, video podcasts in the redesigned Apple TV app, and transcribed audio that helps users follow along with content even when there are no standard captions or subtitles.