Last night I had an interesting experience. I was watching a baseball game with my wife, and she looked at me and said, “Didn’t that guy pitch last night?” I told her no. She looked at me the way wives sometimes look at husbands, and then she pulled out her phone, activated Siri AI, and asked it, “Did number 59 on the Dodgers pitch last night?” Sure enough, Siri AI reported, he did.

Then she smiled at me and set her phone down. Gang, Siri is good at world knowledge. Up until last month, that was not the case. But now, when you need some quick information about the world, whether it be astronomy, cooking, or who pitched last night, you can now quickly and easily get that with the new Siri AI.

This is separate from the personal context stuff Siri does with your private messages, understanding what’s on screen, or changing something inside an app. This is like having your own tiny know-it-all in your pocket. World knowledge is the thing that blew us all away when the original ChatGPT was released, and our use of AI has advanced a lot since then. It can do a lot more with agents and other techniques, but world knowledge is a fundamental tool on anybody’s AI belt.

Until now, you’ve had to share your questions with some company’s servers and sometimes even pay them to get answers. That’s not true anymore with Siri AI. Curiosity shouldn’t require six tabs and clicking on 17 cookie banners. You should be able to just ask, and now you can right to your iPhone.

Some of you may still feel skeptical. That’s entirely understandable. Up until Siri AI, Siri’s best use was as a kitchen timer, but it seems your kitchen timer has been reading up. The fact that my wife is using it says a lot to me because, until recently, Siri in my house was nothing but the butt of jokes.

Does this mean that you can now use Siri AI to replace the most advanced artificial intelligence subroutines? Absolutely not. People are doing some crazy things in the Robot Builders Club, and Siri isn’t there yet. But when it comes to world knowledge, Siri AI absolutely checks the box, and it does so without charging you a fee or compromising your privacy.

The next time you need to check a date, figure out when a store is open, or find out why the leaves on your Japanese maple are suddenly turning brown, just ask Siri. It’ll give you an answer and, most of the time, give you a source. The Gemini-powered Siri AI will quickly and efficiently answer your questions, and now, with it on your phone, your watch, your iPad, and your Mac, you can get those answers easily and anywhere.