macOS Golden Gate unveiled at WWDC 2026: No more Intel Mac support, Siri AI in Spotlight and more

Apple has unveiled macOS Golden Gate, the name for macOS 27, at WWDC 2026, marking a significant moment in Mac history as the operating system draws a definitive line under the Intel era while bringing the rebuilt Siri AI and a suite of cross-platform features to the Mac for the first time.

Intel Macs officially left behind

For the first time in six years, macOS Golden Gate will not support any Mac running an Intel processor. Since Apple began transitioning to its own Apple Silicon chips in 2020, Intel Macs have gradually lost access to new features that required the newer architecture. macOS Golden Gate ends that gradual exclusion with a clean break. From September or October 2026 when the public release lands, Intel Macs will receive no further macOS updates whatsoever.

The decision has been a long time coming. Six years of maintaining Intel compatibility while building an entirely new chip architecture has been an unusually generous transition period by any technology company’s standards, and the move allows Apple to optimise macOS Golden Gate entirely for Apple Silicon without compromise.

Siri AI comes to the Mac

The most significant new feature for Mac users is the arrival of Siri AI, the rebuilt conversational assistant powered by Apple Intelligence and Google Gemini. On macOS Golden Gate, Apple has replaced the old Type to Siri feature with a new integration through Spotlight. When a user enters an AI-oriented prompt into Spotlight, the system recognises it as an AI request and passes it directly to Siri AI.

The new Siri AI on Mac can access a user’s own data while preserving privacy, and carries World Knowledge, meaning it can retrieve information from the web. Conversations are persistent and carry across Mac, iPhone, and iPad, so a research thread started on iPhone can be continued on Mac without starting over.

What else is new

Safari gains the ability to automatically group related tabs into groups, a feature that has been highly requested by users who work across many open tabs simultaneously. Mac also joins the ecosystem-wide child protection framework, with parents able to limit app access and require approval for website visits from Safari on Mac, not just iPhone and iPad. A new website notification feature allows users to be alerted when a selected website is updated.

Liquid Glass stays, refined not reversed

Vocal critics of the Liquid Glass design language introduced in macOS Tahoe last year will not get the reversal they have been hoping for. macOS Golden Gate retains Liquid Glass throughout but addresses some of the readability criticisms that accompanied its debut, with improved transparency customisation allowing users to dial back the translucency on surfaces where legibility is a concern.

A word on the beta

Developer betas are available today, with public betas arriving in a few weeks. Apple will tune macOS Golden Gate significantly for performance before the September or October public release, meaning current betas will drain MacBook batteries faster and carry bugs and incompatibilities that will be resolved before launch. Unless you are a developer who needs the beta to test apps, waiting for the official release is strongly advisable.