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Apple's promise, made at WWDC on 8 June and reported by MacRumors, was a new Siri "coming to all customers with a compatible device later this year." What arrived on 14 September was narrower. iOS 27 Siri shipped as an opt-in public beta in English, according to iPhone in Canada, and it came with a daily ceiling on its cloud requests that Apple describes in a sentence and never puts a number on.

That ceiling is the story. A beta label warns you things will break. A cap with no number means the assistant you trust with your messages can stop helping mid-afternoon, and Apple hasn't said how you'd know.

Does the new Siri have a usage limit?

Yes, Apple caps how many cloud-powered Siri requests you can make each day, says the limit moves with the feature, the request and system demand, and has published no figure for any of them.

That wording is Apple's own, as reported by Latin Times on 15 September: limits "may vary by feature, request complexity, system demand, system policies, and other factors." Five variables, or really four and a catch-all, none visible to you. System demand is the one that bites: the same request can work in the morning and fail in the evening because everyone else is asking too.

Paid chatbots already work this way, and we have covered what a mid-priced chatbot plan buys before it throttles. Those plans at least publish tiers. Apple's free allowance is the floor, and the same report says expanded limits are coming as a paid option, so heavy users should expect a bill.

Inside the cap, the new part is real. The iPhone in Canada launch report describes personal context that indexes Messages, Mail, Photos, Notes and third-party apps through Spotlight, plus on-screen awareness and multi-step actions. Siri now answers from your own data, so its usefulness depends on what you let it index. We think that trade is worth making, though Apple holds the meter, much as Microsoft did when it kept Copilot in Microsoft 365 Family for the account owner only.

Four numbers decide whether to switch it on. tbreak traces the feature to a 2024 announcement that slipped from iOS 26.4 into iOS 27; Latin Times reported the paid tier and October languages; the device ratio is our own count of Apple's 2023 lineup.

The device ratio changes buying decisions. On a standard iPhone 15 or 15 Plus the update installs and the old Siri stays; the line is drawn at the hardware, so only a newer phone fixes it.

Promised in June, shipped in September: iOS 27 Siri side by side

Set against its June promise, the September release kept the personal features but narrowed nearly everything else, from which phones qualify and where they work to how much you can use it each day.

Each row sets the WWDC pitch against the launch build; the last says who should turn it on now.

Read only the right-hand column and the decision is plain. Half the data rows go against you, and all but the cap can be checked in Settings in a minute.

Which iPhones get the new Siri, and who is left waiting?

Only the iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max and iPhone 16 or later run the new Siri, and even those owners wait if they live in the EU or China or use Siri in another language.

Latin Times reported that older phones still receive iOS 27 without the new assistant. That's the trap: the update prompt looks the same on a base iPhone 15 and a 15 Pro.

Updating doesn't turn it on either: you opt in, and both launch reports describe users meeting a waitlist first. The EU exclusion cuts deepest. A Berlin buyer of an iPhone 17 Pro paid for hardware that can run this Siri in a region that won't allow it, and no date is given for either blocked market.

Decide what it may index before you opt in; it's the same bargain AI browsers ask of anyone leaving Chrome: more access to your data in exchange for more help.

• Check Siri settings after installing iOS 27; the update alone changes nothing.
• Spanish, French, Japanese, Korean and Portuguese speakers wait for the October rollout, with no firm day given.
• The cap can tighten as demand rises, so the busiest hours may be the least reliable.

So here is the decision. If your iPhone and Siri language both qualify, opt in this week and let it answer from your own messages and photos, treating the cap as weather you can't forecast. On a base iPhone 15 or older, don't buy a new phone for a capped beta; wait until Apple puts a number, or a price, on the limit.

Related: what the Google Assistant shutdown takes away on Android

Microsoft sells its Family plan as one subscription for up to six people, and since early 2025 it has sold that plan with Copilot built into Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Now open Word on your partner's laptop. They're signed in with their own account, on your plan, and the Copilot button asks them to buy something. That is Microsoft 365 Family Copilot as it actually behaves: the price covers the household, the AI covers whoever pays the bill.

Why does Microsoft 365 Family Copilot stop at the owner?

Microsoft licenses the AI features in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and Designer to the person who pays, so family members share the apps and storage while the in-app AI answers to the owner's account alone.

Microsoft's own Copilot FAQ for Family and Personal subscriptions says it without hedging: those AI features "are only available to the subscription owner and cannot be shared with others" (retrieved 30 September 2026). At the kitchen table that reads simply. Your teenager drafting an essay and your partner building a budget both see the button. Neither can use it on your plan.

I think this is the most wasted opportunity in Microsoft's consumer lineup. Family puts Office in front of people who would never pay for it, exactly the audience Copilot needs to win. Members get the free Copilot chat app instead, and nothing inside their documents. The throttling logic is familiar from what a $20 AI chatbot plan buys before it throttles; here the limit isn't how much you use, it's who you are.

Designer is on the same list, so a member making a school poster should look at our Figma AI, Adobe Firefly and Canva Magic Studio comparison instead. Why Microsoft drew the line at the owner isn't documented. My read, and it is only opinion, is a compute-cost decision dressed as a licensing rule.

Four numbers decide whether the rule is an annoyance or a bad deal. NBC News reported in January 2025 that Microsoft raised consumer prices as Copilot entered the apps; Office Watch reported the Family plan's monthly AI credits in March 2026. The last cell is my own division of the increase by a year of credits.

The credit allowance bites hardest. It isn't a pool split six ways. It belongs to the owner and resets monthly, so a family picturing Copilot helping with homework is really looking at one person's quota.

Family or Premium: which plan fits a shared household?

Family suits most shared households, because Premium only raises the owner's own Copilot allowance; neither plan lets the other five members use Copilot inside Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook.

The usual forum advice is to step up to Premium. It isn't a fix: Microsoft's pricing page prints the same owner-only footnote under both plans.

Premium earns its extra cost in one case: the owner runs out of credits most months. For anyone else, the route to Copilot in the apps is Microsoft 365 Personal, listed at $99.99 a year for one person.

What catches sharing households out

The owner-only rule catches households twice: at renewal, when an AI-era price arrives for a plan where one person gets the AI, and at homework time, when a member finds the Copilot button asking them to subscribe.

No consumer tier fixes it. Even Microsoft 365 Pro, at $99.99 a month and pitched on "highest usage", carries the same owner-only footnote. At that price, a plan sold to six people should at least let the owner assign seats.

The cheaper exit isn't advertised. Office Watch reported in January 2026 that Classic plans, which drop Copilot, "might be offered to people who try to cancel". It's a retention offer, not a menu item. Members keep the free Copilot app, and the AI browsers we compared against Chrome cover a lot of that ground for nothing.

• A member's Copilot prompt in Word leads to a purchase page, not to your plan.
• Classic removes Copilot for the owner too, so check your own use before asking for it.
• A member who buys Personal while staying on your plan pays twice for apps and storage, so free up their seat.

This week, before the plan renews, ask the household one question: who actually wants Copilot inside their documents? If it's one person, move them to their own Personal plan. If it's only you and you rarely touch it, start a cancellation and see whether Classic appears. Either way, stop paying for Premium on the theory that it shares.