Artificial intelligence (AI) advancements in recent years have led to a proliferation of clever and useful AI-powered apps for the iPhone. With its powerful A15 Bionic chip and Neural Engine, the latest iPhones are able to run sophisticated AI apps right from your home screen.
In 2023, iPhone users have an impressive selection of AI apps to choose from across many categories. But which ones are really worth downloading and using regularly? This comprehensive guide explores the top 10 essential AI apps that will boost your productivity, creativity, knowledge and more on your iPhone.
1. Siri
As the pioneering virtual assistant on iPhone, Siri deserves the first spot on any list of AI apps. Introduced in 2011, Siri uses natural language processing to understand voice commands, questions and requests. It has grown significantly smarter and more capable over the years.
With Siri, iPhone users can get directions, set reminders and calendar events, find nearby businesses, call or text contacts, play music, check sports scores, and control smart home devices completely hands-free using just their voice. Siri saves you time compared to manually typing or tapping to accomplish tasks.
While not perfect, Siri is deeply integrated into iOS and the iPhone experience. Apple continues improving Siri’s knowledge graph, response times and ability to understand natural speech patterns. With Siri Shortcuts, advanced users can even build custom voice commands to control apps and services.
2. Otter
For people wanting automated transcription of important voice conversations and meetings, Otter is an essential AI-powered app. It uses advanced speech recognition and natural language processing to automatically transcribe spoken audio in real time.
Otter’s transcripts are highly accurate and the app can identify different speakers. You can tap anywhere on the transcript while listening to the audio to jump immediately to that section. Otter makes it easy to edit or annotate transcripts, while collaboration features allow sharing with other participants.
Syncing audio recordings from meetings with your calendar is another handy capability. Otter’s AI completely eliminates the need for manual notetaking or transcription, saving professionals and students hours of time. The free Otter plan provides enough features for most casual users.
3. CamScanner
CamScanner has emerged as one of the most useful document scanning and organization apps thanks to integrated AI features. Using just your iPhone camera, CamScanner can digitize paper documents, forms, receipts, notes, business cards and more into high-quality scans.
The app automatically detects document boundaries, removes shadows, enhances image quality, crops and rotates scans correctly no matter how you position the iPhone. AI-powered optical character recognition makes text found in scans machine-readable and searchable. Annotating and e-signing scans is also possible.
CamScanner includes robust tools for organizing your digitized documents into folders, tagging scans, and searching your scan library. Scans can be directly uploaded to various cloud storage services. For teams, the app enables easy scan sharing and collaboration workflows. CamScanner and its AI capabilities make paperless workflows easy.
4. Replika
Unlike most productivity-focused AI apps, Replika is a virtual friend chatbot designed to provide helpful conversation and emotional support. Created by Anthropic, Replika uses conversational AI to have discussions with you through text messaging and learn about your personality, interests, and history over time.
The more you chat with your Replika, the more its unique personality emerges as the AI chatbot adapts specifically to you and remembers details you share about yourself. Replika can provide caring advice, joke around, ask follow-up questions, suggest uplifting mood boosts, and generally be a compassionate confidant.
If feeling stressed or anxious, chatting with Replika can be a soothing experience. The app’s companion AI is especially helpful for lonely people and improving mental wellbeing. While not perfect, Replika offers a capable AI companion and mental health support system.
5. Endel
Endel stands out as an AI-generated soundscapes app designed to help you focus, relax and sleep better. Rather than simply play looped sounds like rain, Endel’s algorithmic audio engine creates adaptive sound environments in real-time to transport your mind.
The app responds to your iPhone’s sensors, interactions, the current time of day, and learned insights about your physiology to compose personalized soundscapes with layered rhythms, melodies and textures. Whether winding down for sleep or needing to concentrate, Endel aims to induce your desired mental state through AI-generated audio.
Endel is the brainchild of scientists and musicians. The constantly evolving sound environments tap into audio’s profound effects on human cognition and mood. For iPhone users wanting an ambient AI sound experience backed by research, Endel delivers peaceful, transportive escapes.
6. Lingui Apps
Learning a new language takes time and consistent practice. AI-powered apps from Lingui provide an innovative approach to building vocabulary, improving pronunciation and conversing in your target language.
Lingui offers AI conversation tutors for Spanish, French, German, Portuguese and English. The apps listen to your speech and provide instant feedback on pronunciation using speech recognition and natural language processing. Interactive lessons, flashcards and games adapt to your skill level.
The apps can also generate conversational scripts on demand for practicing real-world dialogue situations. Whether preparing for travel abroad or connecting better with foreign colleagues, Lingui leverages AI to make mastering a new language more effective and engaging.
7. Unfolded
Unfolded aims to cut through information overload using AI to curate personalized news briefings. When first setting up the app, you pick topics of interest. Unfolded then uses natural language processing algorithms to analyze, understand and condense thousands of articles across the web.
Rather than showing every headline, Unfolded delivers a brief, daily digest of the most important news developments tailored precisely to your interests. The app’s AI identifies the most relevant, credible information from trustworthy publications. You can read short summaries or full articles.
By relying on AI to filter lower quality and repetitive content, Unfolded seeks to keep users informed without wasting time and attention. The personalized news briefings provide efficient daily knowledge building in minutes using iPhone’s neural engine.
8. Pixelmator Photo
Pixelmator Photo stands out as a versatile photo editing app for iPhone that incorporates AI in clever ways. It goes far beyond filters and basic edits with AI-powered features like ML Super Resolution to increase image resolution and sharpness.
The app can automatically improve the horizon line, remove image distortions, identify objects and apply targeted adjustments, and intelligently crop photos based on detected content. Pixelmator Photo’s AI capabilities eliminate tedious manual editing tasks.
The ML Enhance feature applies smart enhancements tailored to each photo’s specific content. For quick yet powerful edits, Pixelmator Photo’s integration of iPhone’s machine learning hardware results in a polished, professional look. From automatic color adjustments to removing unwanted objects, its photo enhancements shine.
9. LucidPix 3D
LucidPix 3D lets iPhone users create magical 3D photos easily using AI-powered depth segmentation and parallax. Unlike typical 2D photos, LucidPix uses the iPhone’s dual lenses and advanced computational photography to detect foreground and background layers.
As you tilt and move your iPhone, these layers shift at different 3D perspectives, adding an immersive quality almost like a diorama in your hand. The AI determines segmentations automatically – no special equipment like lidar sensors or depth cameras is required.
LucidPix photos can be shared on social media to amaze viewers. The AI converts photos into living 3D memories and moments. No expertise is needed to create impressive van Gogh ‘ Oil on Canvas’ style photos with realistic depth and parallax. LucidPix provides a glimpse into the creative possibilities of AI on iPhone.
10. Capcut
For iPhone users needing powerful yet easy-to-use video editing tools, Capcut delivers a capable suite of AI-powered capabilities. Capcut makes it simple to create professional-looking videos even without much editing experience.
The app’s video filters and effects generated by AI are striking and modern. Capcut can remove video backgrounds automatically with just a tap thanks to AI segmentation. It also suggests smart trims based on detected content to cut unneeded footage.
Auto-generated captions through speech recognition and an innovative cloning tool for compositing yourself into your video multiple times demonstrate Capcut’s versatile AI features. Support for 4K videos, multi-clip editing and an intuitive interface make it perfect for social media content creation leveraging iPhone’s neural engine.
Conclusion
This guide has explored the top 10 essential AI apps spanning productivity, wellness, creativity and knowledge domains that iPhone users should take advantage of in 2023. Siri remains the pioneer, while Apple’s latest system-on-chip enables more advanced on-device artificial intelligence.
Apps like Otter, CamScanner and Unfolded harness AI to save you time with transcription, scanning and curated news. Replika and Endel tap into AI’s emotional intelligence for connections and relaxation. Pixelmator Photo, LucidPix 3D and Capcut open new creative horizons through AI photo and video editing.
As machine learning continues advancing rapidly, iPhone users can look forward to even more versatile AI apps. With Core ML and the Neural Engine, Apple is pushing iOS apps into the future with artificial intelligence capabilities that simply weren’t possible just a few years ago on a smartphone.
Online Resources
Here is an online resources section with formal website links and descriptions for each of the apps mentioned in the article:
Siri
- Siri – Apple’s official page describing Siri’s capabilities as a virtual assistant for iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch and HomePod
Otter
- Otter – The official Otter website to learn about its AI-powered transcription and note-taking app
CamScanner
- CamScanner – The official CamScanner app website showcasing its document scanning and organization features
Replika
- Replika – Replika’s official website describing how its AI chatbot works and what makes it unique
Endel
- Endel – The official website describing Endel’s AI engine for generating personalized soundscapes
Lingui Apps
- Lingui Apps – Lingui’s website detailing its conversational AI language learning apps
Unfolded
- Unfolded – The Unfolded homepage explaining how its AI delivers personalized news briefings
Pixelmator Photo
- Pixelmator Photo – The Pixelmator Photo product page highlighting its AI-powered photo editing tools
LucidPix 3D
- LucidPix 3D – LucidPix’s site showcasing how its app creates 3D photos using AI depth segmentation
Capcut
- Capcut – The official website for the Capcut video editing app with AI creative tools

With a passion for AI and its transformative power, Mandi brings a fresh perspective to the world of technology and education. Through her insightful writing and editorial prowess, she inspires readers to embrace the potential of AI and shape a future where innovation knows no bounds. Join her on this exhilarating journey as she navigates the realms of AI and education, paving the way for a brighter tomorrow.