Apple Watch Audio Intelligence enters beta in iOS 27.3

Live Rewind and Siri Recaps

The two features that listen to conversations are the more sensitive ones. With Live Rewind, a double press of the digital crown shows the last 15 seconds of speech as text on the watch face. A chime and an animation signal to people nearby that something was captured. The snippet disappears after 30 seconds unless you save it to the Siri app, and an "Ask Siri" option lets you query a term or detail you did not understand.

Siri Recaps goes further by producing short notes of a conversation: one summary sentence plus bullet points on items such as dates, deadlines or pricing. Apple says it does not identify speakers, store raw audio or provide word-for-word transcripts. It does not record while you listen to music on headphones or use noise cancellation. Recaps can be switched on manually or on a schedule, and turned off from Control Center. You are prompted to review them daily, can save them to Notes or Journal, and unsaved ones are deleted within seven days. Apple says the feature omits sensitive data such as government identifiers and financial or authentication details.

How the privacy design works

Audio Intelligence runs on the S11 chip, the watch microphone, Apple Intelligence models on the iPhone and Private Cloud Compute. Raw audio is processed in a dedicated buffer inside a secure enclave and is reachable only by the paired iPhone. The iPhone converts speech into condensed text, which is encrypted and sent to Private Cloud Compute to generate the recap, then deleted there immediately. Apple says recaps are accessible only to the user and encrypted when synced across devices.

The company says the features should not affect battery life on the watch or phone. A public beta is expected to follow before a general release.