I used to only ever use CarPlay for playing podcasts and navigation, but since the arrival of Siri AI, I've found I'm using my iPhone for more things while driving, and it's changed the game in ways I didn't expect.

CarPlay itself has always been pretty great, but Siri has always been Siri. That means that I let it read my messages and maybe, if it felt like working, I used it to reply to one or two as well.

But beyond the simplest of simple interactions, Siri did little more than frustrate me. And that's something I don't need when I'm driving.

But something changed with the launch of Siri AI with iOS 27. It's a combination of new features paired with old ones that now work properly, I think. But the impact has been huge for me.

I'm not here to say that Siri AI is now the bot to beat, and it still manages to be frustrating as often as it's fantastic. But there are a couple of ways that I've found Siri AI to be capable of making a difference when I'm behind the wheel.

I'll preface this with a disclaimer that one person's experience with Siri AI doesn't always match another's. I won't be surprised when the comments explode with people telling me none of this works for them.

I'll also say that I'm using an iPhone 18 Pro Max in reasonably-sized cities with reasonably-strong 5G connections, so keep that in mind as well.

But with that all said, let's dive in.

Reminding me before I forget

At the ripe old age of being uncomfortably over 40, I was officially diagnosed with what we call here in the UK Inattentive ADHD. It's basically the part of ADHD where I can't remember something you said to me, even if you said it about 30 seconds ago. It's gone, and it ain't coming back.

As a result, I've taken to writing everything down anything that I'm asked to do or remember. I use a combination of Reminders and Marco Arment's Unforgetful, and it works well.

Except when I'm driving, of course.

One way that I routinely get myself into trouble is forgetting things I'm asked to do in a text message. Siri reads the message while I drive, and marks it as read once it's done. I dutifully remember every word until I spot a nice car or the lights change.

But with Siri AI, I've found a trick that seems to work well enough to keep me out of trouble. Now, when Siri AI reads the message, I immediately tell it to remind me about it, say, in an hour, or when I reach my destination. And it does.

Because this is Siri AI, it knows what it just said, and it uses that information to populate the new reminder. It even (sometimes, not always) puts a link back to the iMessage in the reminder's notes field. It's, honestly, just short of magical.

I have Reminders notifications disabled so that Unforgetful can bug me until I deal with it. That's because I've learned my brand of ADHD means one push notification is zero push notifications, and it needs to be more.

This is a prime example of something that just wasn't possible before Siri AI. At least, it wasn't in a way that I could reliably use.

Finding that thing I only half remember

There should be a theme forming by this point and, yes, it's that my memory can't be trusted. But it's another area where Siri AI now regularly comes to my rescue.

Driving, like standing in the shower and being awake at 3 am, is when things tend to pop into my head. Sometimes they're things I should do, things I probably shouldn't have done, or something I half remember but not quite.

That's particularly irritating when I'm driving because I can't drop everything and start digging through my phone. But alas, driving is often when I remember there was something I was supposed to do, or there was a detail I can't quite remember.

Siri AI's ability to dive into my iPhone and its contents means I can press a button on my steering wheel and talk away. It usually involves me saying that there's something about something else that I sort of remember, and it might have been in an email. Shockingly often, Siri AI finds the answer.

It isn't perfect, I'll admit, and sometimes my vague recollection and even more vague description don't help. But it does the trick often enough for me to keep trying, because it's worth its weight in gold when it comes off.

How AI should work

I'm still skeptical about the role AI can have in our daily lives. But I think these are the kinds of ways it can make them easier. I've no interest in having AI write generic copy for me, or create a picture of someone with six fingers.

Plugging holes in my memory is where Siri AI shines. And I expect it to only get better and more useful from here.