Apple pushed iOS 27 beta 3 on July 6, and Siri finally comes with two sliders you can play with. One controls how fast it speaks, the other how emotional it sounds. You hear the change in real time as you drag.
The Gist
- Two new sliders in iOS 27 beta 3, called Pace and Expressivity.
- The audio preview updates while you move each slider, no need to press play.
- Only iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone Air support the feature for now.
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ChatGPTTwo new sliders you can play with
Until now, Siri had a fixed personality. You could pick between a handful of voices and accents, but you could not really tweak them. iOS 27 beta 3 changes that. Two new sliders let you shape the way Siri speaks in the exact tone you prefer.
The first slider is called Pace. It controls how quickly Siri talks. Drag it left and Siri slows down. Drag it right and it speeds up. Simple as that. If you always felt Siri sounded rushed, you now get to slow it down until it feels natural.
The second slider is Expressivity. This one is more subtle. It changes how much emotion Siri puts into its voice. Low expressivity gives you a flatter, more robotic tone. High expressivity makes Siri sound more human, with rising and falling intonation.
The best part is the live preview. As you move a slider, Siri plays a rolling audio sample that updates instantly. You do not need to close the settings and test in real life to know if the tweak works. You hear the result as you drag.
How to try it on your iPhone
The feature ships with iOS 27 beta 3, out on July 6. If you are on the public beta program, install the update from Settings, then head to Settings, Siri, Voice. The two sliders sit right below the voice picker.
Pick a voice you like first, then move the sliders. Try extreme positions first, all the way left, all the way right. That gives you a sense of the range. Then dial back to a spot that feels natural for your daily use.
One catch. The feature only works on the iPhone 17 Pro and the iPhone Air. If you use a different model, including the standard iPhone 17, the sliders will not appear. Apple says the voice rendering happens on the phone itself, and only those models have the chip power to handle it.
Once you set the sliders, the new voice does not stay limited to Siri. It also carries over to Apple Maps and Safari. So the voice that reads your turn-by-turn directions, and the voice that reads articles aloud in Safari, will match the tone you picked in Siri settings.
If you are still on iOS 26 or the standard iOS 27 release, this feature is not available yet. The public rollout usually follows the developer beta by two or three months, so you should get it in the fall on compatible models.
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Why this changes your daily use of Siri
A voice you actually enjoy hearing is a small thing that changes a lot. Voice assistants live and die on how comfortable they feel. If Siri sounds cold and rushed to you, you avoid using it. If it sounds warm and paced right, you start reaching for it more.
The most obvious use is reading long messages or articles aloud. Slow the pace down and you can actually follow a long email through your earbuds while walking. Boost the expressivity and Siri sounds like a person reading you a story, not a machine reciting words.
The other big use is accessibility. People with hearing difficulties or attention differences often need voices that speak slower and with clearer intonation. Same for people learning English on iPhone. A slower, more expressive Siri becomes a real reading tutor for anyone who needs to catch every word.
A last angle is the beginner AI toolkit already covered on AI Noobies. If you were only using ChatGPT voice mode until now, Siri suddenly becomes an alternative worth trying, especially since it lives right on your phone with no login step.
Expect Google and Samsung to release similar sliders on their own assistants over the next months. Voice customization was a missing piece across every consumer AI in 2026, and Apple just made it feel obvious. Once one big brand ships it, everyone else has to follow.
Stay tuned on AI Noobies.
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