After an infuriating week, I found the key to using the voice assistant with fewer issues.

Here’s How to Opt Out

Since Apple Intelligence is all about Siri AI now, here's what you need to know to de-AI your iPhone.


Matteo Della Torre/NurPhoto/Getty Images

The newest iPhone software, iOS 27, is rolling out this week. With it comes a new dose of Apple Intelligence, including Siri AI. But as CNET spotted this week, if you upgrade to iOS 27, you will lose your ability to disable Apple Intelligence with one main setting toggle.

The “Apple Intelligence & Siri” setting becomes just “Siri” with iOS 27. But there are still some ways to disable Apple’s AI if you don’t want to use the tools or have them eat up your storage space.

If your device is not running the newest software, turning off Apple Intelligence all at once only takes a few taps in Settings and doesn’t affect any core iPhone functionality. Here’s how to do it on iPhone, iPad and Mac.

How to turn off Apple Intelligence with iOS 27

You can still disable some of Apple’s AI features if your iPhone is running iOS 27. It just won’t be as easy as tapping the main toggle.

To disable Siri AI, go to Settings > Siri and toggle off the control. Beware, though, that this will disable your voice assistant entirely, as well as disable conversations in the new dedicated Siri app and block you from using Apple’s Visual Intelligence. Additionally, your HomePod speakers will not be able to recognize your voice or help with personal content if they’re on the same iCloud account as your iPhone.

How to disable some of the individual Apple AI features.

Why turn off Apple Intelligence in the first place?

Since the first Apple Intelligence features rolled out in iOS 18.1, some people have opted out of the new technology. Tools such as Image Playground, Genmoji and message summaries can use up to 7GB of your device’s internal storage — a sizable chunk, especially if you tend to run against the upper limit of its free space.

Even if storage is not an issue, you just may not be interested in Apple’s set of AI features. A recent CNET survey finds that just 19% of US smartphone owners are choosing to upgrade their devices to take advantage of new AI features. And a recent ZDNET/Aberdeen survey reveals that the majority of US adults say they will not use most AI features, and just 8% would consider paying extra for them. Some AI features are more welcome than others, with 58% of respondents saying using AI for photo editing would be valuable.

Or, honestly, you may not want to deal with features that are creating inaccurate summaries or that can be replicated without Apple Intelligence.


The trainer killed someone? | Nelson Aguilar/CNET

(Earlier iOS 18 updates re-enabled Apple Intelligence automatically even if you had turned it off, but as of iOS 18.4, the setting is honored.)

Is Apple Intelligence really ready to be on by default?

I’m not an AI crank — I appreciate features such as notification summaries and the Clean Up tool in the Photos app. And yet, Apple Intelligence is also a work in progress, an evolving set of features that Apple is heavily hyping while gradually developing. I wouldn’t hold it against you if you wanted to not be distracted or feel like you’re doing Apple’s testing for them (that’s what the developer and public betas should be for).

Remember that Apple Intelligence works only on the new iPhone 18 lineup, the iPhone Duo, iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Pro, iPhone Air, iPhone 17E, iPhone 16, iPhone 16E, iPhone 16 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro or M-series Macs and iPads, plus the newest iPad mini.

How to see the amount of storage Apple Intelligence is using

If you’re concerned about the storage requirements of Apple Intelligence, you can find out how much the system is using by going to Settings > General > iPhone (or iPad) Storage > iOS (or iPadOS).


See how much space Apple Intelligence is using in Settings. This is what it looks like running iOS 26,
but the settings flow is the same. | Screenshots by Jeff Carlson/CNET

Note that even after turning off Apple Intelligence, the storage still shows up in the iOS Storage list. However, I was able to confirm that if the phone’s storage fills up and the system needs that now-inactive space, iOS reclaims what it needs.

How to turn off individual Apple Intelligence features

Maybe you’re finding some Apple Intelligence features helpful while others are annoying (or just highly amusing). You can turn off specific features in the settings for apps to which they apply.

For example, to disable text summaries in Messages notifications, go to Settings > Apps > Messages and switch off the Summarize Messages option.


Turn off Messages summaries while still using other Apple Intelligence features. | Screenshot by Jeff Carlson/CNET

Some features are not as app-specific. Writing Tools, which use Apple Intelligence to proof or rewrite text, appear as an option when you select text, regardless of the app. To turn that off, you need to disable Apple Intelligence system-wide.

Also note that nearly every app includes an “Apple Intelligence & Siri” option in Settings, with a Learn from this App option (turned on by default). That applies just to whether Apple Intelligence and Siri can monitor how you use it to make suggestions; it doesn’t affect any particular Apple Intelligence features.

How to turn off Apple Intelligence features in Screen Time settings

Another option for restricting what Apple Intelligence can do is buried in the Screen Time settings. Screen Time is designed to control which apps and features can run on another device, such as the iPhone used by a child in your household. But it’s also helpful for tracking how much time you’re spending on the device and, in this case, turning off some components of Apple Intelligence.

1. Open the Settings app and go to Screen Time > Content & Privacy Restrictions.

2. Turn on the Content & Privacy Restrictions option if it’s not already enabled. If this is the first time you’re flipping this switch, don’t worry — everything is allowed by default.

3. Tap Intelligence & Siri.

4. Tap on the following three features and decide whether to allow or don’t allow their use: Image Creation (such as Image Playground and Genmoji), Writing Tools and the ChatGPT Extension (which uses ChatGPT to process requests that are beyond the built-in Apple Intelligence capabilities).


Turn off selected Apple Intelligence features in the Screen Time settings. This is what the settings
look like with iOS 26. It may look different if you are using iOS 27.
The settings flow is the same. | Screenshots by Jeff Carlson/CNET

If you haven’t upgraded to iOS 27 yet, make a good backup first.

How to turn off Apple Intelligence entirely (iPhone, iPad and Mac) if you aren’t on iOS 27

If you aren’t on iOS 27, you can turn off Apple Intelligence with one tap. (You can see what software your iPhone is running by going to Settings > General > About and seeing what iOS version you’re running.)

If you’re on iOS 26 or earlier, here’s how to disable Apple Intelligence. Open Settings (iPhone or iPad) or System Settings (Mac) and choose Apple Intelligence & Siri. Then turn off the Apple Intelligence option. Confirm your choice in the dialog that appears by tapping Turn Off Apple Intelligence.


Turn off Apple Intelligence entirely with one switch if you are running iOS 26 or an earlier software
version. | Screenshots by Jeff Carlson/CNET

Here’s what you lose:

   • Writing tools

   • Notification summaries

   • Visual Intelligence

   • Genmoji

   • Image Playground — the app remains, but you can’t create images.

   • ChatGPT support for Siri

   • Image Wand in the Notes app

Curiously, the Clean Up tool in Photos sticks around even when Apple Intelligence is turned off, perhaps because the first time you use it the app downloads resources for it and holds onto them.

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When you're looking for authoritative answers, the last thing you need is a bunch of low-quality garbage in your search results. Here's how to fix that.


Google is displayed on a computer screen on April 13, 2006 | Scott Barbour/Getty Images

I spend a big part of each working day struggling with search engines. A lot of my questions are technology-related: How does this feature work? What does that error code mean? Which apps are compatible with the new hardware platform or OS version I’m testing right now?

There’s usually an authoritative answer to each of those questions, documented by the engineers and designers who wrote the code or built the device I’m working with. But good luck finding those answers, as modern search engines now insist on flooding the results page with AI-based summaries, ads, and links to enthusiast videos, third-party vendor content, and low-quality AI slop. (These days, any search for anything related to Windows turns up a depressing amount of useless, SEO-optimized sludge.)

How custom search shortcuts changed the way I work

This became an ongoing headache as I researched my latest book, “Windows 11 Inside Out, Second Edition.” (See the end of this post for more details about that project.) After yet another frustrating search session, I finally worked out a solution. Instead of handing my search terms to Google and waiting to be disappointed, I created custom shortcuts that restrict the search scope to the authoritative sites I’m looking for, plus a handful of reliable third-party sources.

For the book, my two primary sources were Microsoft Support and Microsoft Learn. The latter (which used to be called Microsoft Docs) is Redmond’s official repository of technical documentation for everything the company makes. It contains a staggering amount of information, categorized by product, and it can be difficult to navigate. As I’ve learned over many years of working with Microsoft products, some of the most interesting technical details about Windows features can pop up in unexpected places — buried in documentation that was written for server administrators, hardware makers, or app developers, for example.

I also know that there’s a wealth of reliable information on some third-party sites that aren’t part of Microsoft.com, including GitHub, Super User, the Stack Exchange network, and even a handful of well-managed Subreddits.

So I built two shortcuts — one that searches only official Microsoft sites, and a second that searches an expanded list of curated sites.

My solution worked exceptionally well, as this example shows. I wanted to read Microsoft’s privacy policy for its Copilot chatbot. Here’s what I got from a basic Google search.


Screenshot by Ed Bott/ZDNET

Nearly the entire page is taken up by “sponsored results” — ads, that is, including one from Microsoft. The rest of the page is given over to the start of an AI summary. Scrolling down didn’t help. That just gave me “People also ask” and “Find related products and services” plus, for some reason, a random link about Copilot privacy policies for students at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. (Go Vols!)

Here’s what my custom search shortcut returned for the same query.



That’s much more useful. And it looks surprisingly like the Google search results we all remember from pre-AI days. A clean list of links, uncluttered by ads and machine-generated junk.

After building those shortcuts, I realized that this technique works for any field of specialized knowledge. Assemble your own curated list of trusted sites and build a shortcut that restricts results to just those sources. Do that for your specialty and you can say goodbye to low-quality content, ads, and AI summaries.

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Apple fixed 122 security vulnerabilities in iOS 27. Some of the most serious ones could give attackers root access and hijack network traffic.



Apple just released iOS 27 to the public. And while the focus of the majority of users is directed towards new features and UI refinements, the latest major iOS update brings something arguably more important. Namely, Apple has shipped more than 100, or 122 to be precise, fixes for various vulnerabilities across iPhones and iPads.

Apple shared details about the fixes in its latest security advisory, covering everything from the kernel and WebKit to Safari, Siri, storage, authentication, and privacy-related components. Some of the vulnerabilities are relatively minor, but others could have had much more serious consequences.

One of the more important fixes addresses CVE-2026-43689 in the kernel. According to Apple, a malicious app could exploit the flaw to get root privileges, which would essentially give it the highest level of access on the system. Apple says it fixed the permissions issue by adding "additional restrictions."

There’s also CVE-2026-84523 in APFS, Apple's file system. That vulnerability could allow an app to unexpectedly terminate the system or write kernel memory. Apple addressed the out-of-bounds write issue with "improved bounds checking."

Another notable fix is CVE-2026-65329 in Telephony. Apple says an attacker in a privileged network position could potentially bypass IPSec authentication and intercept network traffic, which could allow threat actors to access users’ browsing data. Apple’s fix for this issue was "improved state management."

The update also fixes a wide range of other problems, including WebKit vulnerabilities, privacy issues that could expose sensitive user data, and flaws that could let apps identify other installed apps or bypass certain restrictions. There’s even a Shortcuts bug that could allow a malicious shortcut to send messages without confirmation from the user.

If you take a look at the advisory, you'll notice that Apple mostly gives brief explanation on what was done with certain vulnerability, without going too much details. So we couldn't give you more details beyond what was said by Apple.

We’ve already reported that Apple is increasingly relying on AI to hunt for vulnerabilities, and the iOS 27 batch is no exception. Most notably, Apple credited help from both OpenAI and Anthropic in the advisory. One vulnerability was discovered by Calif.io in collaboration with Claude and Anthropic Research, and a few were discovered by Codex Security.

If you want to check out every vulnerability that the company addressed in iOS 27, visit Apple’s official security advisory.

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Shortly after this article was published, Google released another Chrome update that patches an actively exploited flaw in the V8 JavaScript engine, tracked as CVE-2026-85046.

Google rates the vulnerability as high severity and says an exploit already exists in the wild. An attacker could use a crafted HTML page to execute arbitrary code inside the Chrome sandbox. Because it is already being exploited, HKCERT rates the overall risk as extremely high.

After installing the latest update, Chrome should be at version 152.0.7977.82/.83 on Windows and Mac, or 152.0.7977.82 on Linux.

Chrome is rolling out an update for its desktop browser. The update includes 26 security fixes, two of which Google rates as critical use-after-free vulnerabilities.

How to update Chrome

If you don’t want to wait for the rollout to reach you, manually updating is easy.

The easiest option is to allow Chrome to update automatically. But you can end up lagging behind if you never close your browser or if something goes wrong with the update.

To update manually, click the More menu (three dots), then go to Settings > About Chrome. If an update is available, Chrome will start downloading it automatically. Restart Chrome to complete the update, and you’ll be protected against these vulnerabilities.

You can find an explanation of the version numbering system and step-by-step instructions in our guide: How to update Chrome on every operating system.

Technical details

Let’s look at the two critical vulnerabilities. Both are use-after-free (UAF) vulnerabilities. A use-after-free vulnerability occurs when a program attempts to access a memory location after it has been freed. That can cause crashes or, in some cases, allow an attacker to run their own code.

The first, tracked as CVE-2026-84353, was found in Shared Tab Groups and could allow a remote attacker using social engineering to execute arbitrary code outside the browser sandbox via a crafted HTML page. Here, social engineering likely means an attacker would have to lure you to a malicious website or open an email in HTML format.

The other critical vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2026-84352, was found in WebGL. WebGL, short for Web Graphics Library, is a browser technology that lets websites display interactive 2D and 3D graphics. The vulnerability could allow a remote attacker to execute arbitrary code outside the sandbox via a crafted HTML page.

Chrome vulnerabilities that enable remote code execution outside the browser sandbox are particularly valuable to attackers because they can turn a visit to a malicious or compromised website into direct code running on the underlying operating system, often without requiring additional exploitation steps.

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But shares no numbers

At IFA 2026, Microsoft confirmed Windows 11 will boot faster, so you’ll notice the lock screen appear almost immediately. It also reaffirmed that Windows 11 will soon run well on 8GB RAM PCs, and even security features like Windows Hello will feel more responsive when the next big update rolls out.

Microsoft has spent much of 2026 promising that Windows 11 will get better at the things previous versions of Windows already excelled at, such as moving the taskbar, resizing the Start menu, or having more native apps. All of that was a normal part of the OS before Windows 11 happened, and Microsoft has finally realized it messed up.

Some of those promises have already come true, but if you haven’t seen any visible difference on your PC yet, it’s because of the gradual rollout. With the September 2026 Patch Tuesday update, scheduled for September 8, Microsoft will enable the movable taskbar, resizable Start menu, and let you remove Bing from Windows Search.

It’s a good list of improvements, but there’s more, and Microsoft teased some of it at the IFA 2026 conference.

Speaking at IFA 2026, Mark Linton, Corporate Vice President of Windows & Devices at Microsoft, confirmed that Windows 11 has already made significant gains in performance, and early internal benchmarks suggest the OS has reduced boot times.

“We’ve made significant gains on things like boot time, Windows Hello responsiveness…” Linton said.

Windows Latest understands that the faster boot time isn’t live in the preview builds, and Linton was likely referring to an internal build.

“We’re continuing to improve on the fundamentals,” Linton added. “We’re listening to customer feedback, continuously improving Windows, and you’ll see those updates as Windows just gets better as the updates come through.”

Microsoft wants Windows 11 to run well on 8GB of RAM

Microsoft has already suggested that it’ll make Windows run well on 8GB RAM PCs again due to rising memory costs, and we heard that statement again at IFA 2026.

“We’re optimizing so that 8 gig of RAM runs great on machines as well,” Linton said without sharing any numbers.

Nobody should be buying an 8GB RAM PC for any serious tasks, but that doesn’t mean Microsoft’s and the industry’s broader effort to make Windows or apps run better on 8GB of RAM is a bad idea.

It’s going to benefit everyone, including those with 16GB, 32GB, or more RAM. In fact, it’s good to see companies working to improve their software for a change, as that practice appears to have gone missing entirely over the last few years.

And if you don’t believe how unoptimized Windows apps are, just open Task Manager and stare at a few of the background processes, such as Discord, which, according to its own developers, can use up to 4GB of RAM. Or Microsoft Teams, which can use 1-2GB of RAM in an idle state.

For years, Microsoft has been pushing 16GB of RAM as the new baseline and 32GB RAM as the recommended hardware for the best gaming performance. Copilot+ PCs still have a baseline requirement of 16GB of RAM, so PCs that launched with 8GB of RAM do not qualify as Windows AI hardware, and that includes Microsoft’s own Surface laptop with 8GB RAM.

But the whole idea of pushing AI and justifying more RAM has backfired and contributed to rising prices. And Microsoft is now explicitly talking about optimizing Windows so that 8GB systems still “run great.”

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