Apple’s Siri AI overhaul at WWDC 2026 looked like a universal upgrade for every iPhone. The reality is more complicated. Reports suggest the base iPhone 18 may not support every Siri AI capability depending on how much RAM it ships with and that distinction matters more than most people realize.
Here’s the technical background. Apple now runs two different on-device AI models in iOS 27. AFM Core works on any Apple Intelligence-compatible device. AFM Core Advanced, the more capable version with faster reasoning, better natural speech generation, and higher-quality dictation, requires 12GB of RAM. Currently only three iPhones qualify: the iPhone 17 Pro, iPhone 17 Pro Max, and iPhone Air.
The question is whether the base iPhone 18 joins that 12GB club or stays below it. Reports genuinely conflict here. Some supply-chain sources point to 12GB RAM across the entire iPhone 18 lineup. Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo’s more recent checks suggest the base model gets 9GB instead which would mean missing AFM Core Advanced and some of the most capable Siri features arriving with iOS 27.
If the base model stays at 9GB, it still gets the full core Apple Intelligence experience, smarter conversations, Visual Intelligence, Writing Tools, Image Playground, Genmoji, and ChatGPT integration. It’s not a stripped experience. It’s just not the most powerful version available.
Apple hasn’t confirmed any iPhone 18 RAM configurations, so both scenarios remain genuinely possible until September.
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