Apple Watch gets smarter with Audio Intelligence in iOS 27.3: Here's what the new AI tools do

Apple wants its smartwatches to do more than track workouts, display notifications and monitor health. The company is now bringing artificial intelligence-powered features that could help you remember everyday conversations without having to take notes manually. Whether it is an important instruction at work, a discussion during a meeting or something someone mentioned in passing, the new tools are designed to help you revisit key information.

Apple had introduced these capabilities alongside its latest smartwatch lineup in September. Now, two of its most anticipated features have entered developer beta testing, bringing the company closer to making its watches more useful for everyday communication and information recall.

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Apple Watch gets Live Rewind and Siri Recap - How they work

Apple’s Audio Intelligence features have started rolling out to developers through the watchOS 27.3 beta. The update brings four features to Apple Watch Series 12 and Apple Watch Ultra 4, including Live Rewind, Siri Recap, Sound Recognition and Music Recognition powered by Shazam.

Live Rewind lets you retrieve the previous 15 seconds of a conversation by double-pressing the Digital Crown. The watch displays the spoken content as a text snippet, which you can save to the Siri app or ask Siri about. If you do not save it, the snippet disappears automatically.

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Siri Recap, meanwhile, creates short summaries and bullet points from conversations, highlighting useful information such as dates, deadlines and key discussion points. You can review these summaries and save them to Notes or Journal. Unwanted summaries are automatically deleted after seven days.

The other two features focus on sounds around the wearer. Sound Recognition identifies important sounds such as sirens, alarms, doorbells and a baby crying. Music Recognition uses Shazam to automatically identify songs and display their titles and artists.

Compatibility, privacy and availability

Apple says the features are opt-in and do not create or store audio recordings. Siri Recap does not identify speakers or generate word-for-word transcripts. Live Rewind also displays an audible chime and microphone indicator when activated.

The features use Apple’s S11 chip and Secure Exclave technology, alongside Apple Intelligence and Private Cloud Compute.

Live Rewind and Siri Recap require Apple Watch Series 12 or Ultra 4 paired with an Apple Intelligence-compatible iPhone 16 or later, excluding iPhone 16e. They will initially support English, with a public beta expected before wider availability. The features will not initially be available in the European Union.