How to launch Visual Intelligence

• You can customize the Action Button to launch Visual Intelligence: Go to Settings, tap Action Button, then swipe left or right to find Visual Intelligence.
• You can launch it from the lockscreen. With your phone locked, tap and hold on the lockscreen, then choose Customize > Lock Screen. Tap the – (minus) symbol next to either icon in the bottom corner to clear the current shortcut, then tap + (plus) to select Visual Intelligence as the replacement.
• You can launch it from the Control Center. Swipe down from the top right corner of the display. You should see a Visual Intelligence shortcut. If it’s not there, tap + (plus) in the top left corner, then Add a Control to add Visual Intelligence.

How to use Visual Intelligence

• Identify animals and plants. If you’re looking at an animal or plant, Visual Intelligence should recognize this, and tell you what you’re looking at without any further input. You can then tap the animal or plant name for more information.

• Interact with businesses. Point your iPhone camera at a business location, and it should be identified in the same way that animals and plants are, with a label at the top. Tap this label to see your options, which will vary depending on what Apple’s AI can find. These options might include Schedule (to see opening times), Order (to order a delivery), Menu (to see food, drink, or services), and Reserve (to book a table). Tap the three dots to call the business, visit its website, or see more information about it.

• Scan text: Visual Intelligence can do a lot with text. Tap the capture button (the large circle at the bottom) with text in view, and you get onscreen options to Summarize, Translate, or Read Aloud the text using AI.

• Take action on text: Visual Intelligence will often pop up options for taking action on text it recognizes. It can call numbers, create calendar events from dates, message email addresses, and look up information on flight numbers.

• Tap Ask to get a ChatGPT prompt box. You can then ask what an object is, how to fix something, how to solve a math problem, how to make a dish from certain ingredients, or any other image-related query you can think of based on what’s onscreen.

• Tap Search to get the standard list of Google search results for the image you’ve snapped. This can be helpful if you want to shop online for something that’s in front of you, but it also works for some of the same queries above as well (maybe identifying an actor from an image, or looking up a make of car).