Here's What You Can Do With the iOS 26 Apple Intelligence Shortcuts App

Apple overhauled the Shortcuts app in iOS 26, iPadOS 26, and macOS Tahoe, and there are now Apple Intelligence options that users can take advantage of. The app supports ‌Apple Intelligence‌ models for things like summarizing PDFs, generating recipes, answering questions, and more.

There are several pre-programmed Shortcuts in the Gallery that you can select in ‌iOS 26‌. Here's what Apple offers, along with the descriptions:

• Morning Summary - Use Model to describe the day ahead of you.
• Action Items From Meeting Notes - Use Model to grab action items from meeting notes.
• Haiku - Use Model to write a you a fun haiku.
• Leftover Recipes - Use Model to whip up a quick recipe with leftovers you have in the fridge.
• Summarize PDF - Use Model to summarize the open PDF in Safari.
• Is Severance Season 3 Out? - Use Model to find out if something has been released.
• ASCII Art - Use Model to draw you some ASCII art.
• Document Review - Use Mode to help you compare and contrast documents.
• Reminders Roulette - Use Model to punt an unimportant reminder to tomorrow.
• Get Started With Language Models - A tutorial for Use Model with examples.

As the last pre-made Shortcut suggests, you can create your own shortcuts that incorporate Apple's AI model, and Apple's offerings serve as examples.

When you go to create a Shortcut, there's a new ‌Apple Intelligence‌ section. You can opt to use an on-device model, a cloud model that takes advantage of Private Cloud Compute, or ChatGPT. There are some pre-determined options, so you can do things like open Visual Intelligence or generate an image with Image Playground.

There are several Writing Tools features for adjusting the tone of text, proofreading, creating a list from text, summarizing text, or rewriting text.

When you tap on Cloud, On-Device Model, or ChatGPT, there's an open-ended prompt where you can write in what you want to do. You need to work within the confines of the model that Apple provides, pairing it with other functionality in Shortcuts. You can pull in data from the Weather app, your Calendar, and Reminders, then ask the model to prepare a summary, for example. AI models can be incorporated into any Shortcut.

‌iOS 26‌, ‌iPadOS 26‌, and ‌macOS Tahoe‌ are in the early stages of beta testing, so the work on Shortcuts has just started, and Apple will be refining the app over the course of the beta testing period.