Exposing app actions to the system
App Intents is Apple’s developer framework for making an app’s capabilities and data available to Siri, Shortcuts, Spotlight, and Apple Intelligence.
A task app that publishes show today’s tasks and add a task as App Intents lets people run those actions from Siri or Shortcuts without opening the app and navigating its interface.
When it appeared, and what changed
App Intents is not new in WWDC26. Apple introduced it at WWDC22 as a Swift-native framework for offering app actions to the system.
At WWDC26, integration with Siri AI became more significant, with App Schemas extended so an app can convey the meaning of the people, places, files, and actions it contains. That makes it easier to support questions about what is on screen and operations that span several apps.
What it is used for
- Running app features by voice through Siri
- Adding app-specific actions to Shortcuts
- Searching in-app content from Spotlight
- Driving actions from widgets and the Action button
- Letting Siri AI understand app content and choose an appropriate action
How it differs from an API or tool call
A general API is an interface for calling functionality from another program. App Intents is specifically about conveying an app’s actions, and their meaning, to Apple’s system features.
Delegating operations to AI still requires designing what may run, what needs confirmation, and how personal data is handled. Anything hard to undo — sending, purchasing, deleting — should require the user to confirm.