App Intents

App Intents are a programming system from Apple. Developers use it to make individual functions of their apps visible to the outside world — to Siri (Apple’s voice assistant), the Shortcuts app, or the Lock Screen. Without App Intents, an app remains a closed unit: you tap it, open it, use it. With App Intents, the operating system can reach into it in a targeted way. A function like “turn on the light” or “create a new note” can then be carried out via voice command or automation, without the app ever even being seen.

App Intents as a bridge between app and system

In the past, apps on Apple devices were largely separated from one another. One app didn’t know what another was doing — and the operating system couldn’t reach deeply into individual apps. This was intentional for security reasons, but it also limited what automations and voice assistants could accomplish.

App Intents solve this problem in a controlled way. The developer decides which actions to expose — no more, no less. Siri doesn’t get blanket access to an app, only the doors the developer explicitly opens. For users, this means Siri becomes more useful without the app becoming less secure.

With the introduction of Apple Intelligence — Apple’s AI system, available on newer iPhones and Macs starting in 2024 — the role of App Intents became even more important. The AI needs App Intents as a foundation in order to act independently within apps. An app that provides no intents is invisible to Apple’s AI assistant.

How an intent is structured

A single App Intent describes exactly one action. It has a name that Siri or the Shortcuts app shows to the user — for example, “Start Favorite Route.” It also has parameters: inputs the user must supply for the action to work. For a navigation app, that might be the destination. And it has a result: what the action returns once it’s finished.

The developer writes this intent directly in the app’s code, in the Swift programming language. Apple has provided ready-made building blocks for this, so that a simple intent requires only a few lines of code. The system automatically registers the intent with the operating system — no separate entry, no configuration file.

A common misconception: App Intents are not artificial intelligence. They only define what an app should be able to do. The AI — that is, Siri or Apple Intelligence — then decides when and how to invoke this intent. The intent is the tool, not the hand that uses it.

App Intents in products and headlines

In practice, users encounter App Intents mainly in the Shortcuts app. There, all the exposed actions of installed apps appear as building blocks that can be assembled into custom automations. Someone who wants their favorite playlist to start automatically every morning, the lights to dim, and the first calendar appointment to be read aloud combines several App Intents into a sequence.

In tech news, the term gained traction starting with the WWDC 2022 developer conference, when Apple rebuilt the system from the ground up and greatly simplified it. Since then, it has become a fixed part of every discussion about Siri improvements. When journalists write that Siri can now “reach deep into apps,” they almost always mean: the app has implemented App Intents.

With the announcement of Apple Intelligence, the topic moved back into the spotlight. Apple touted that the assistant would in the future be able to act across apps — searching emails, editing photos, sending messages, all in a single command. This only works if apps offer their functions via App Intents. For developers, providing intents thus went from being a nice extra to a genuine requirement.