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How to use Visual Intelligence to understand your surroundings with iPhone 16 and 16 Pro

Visual Intelligence is a powerful Apple Intelligence feature, allowing iPhone users to instantly gather information about their surroundings simply by snapping a photo. Think of it as a more powerful extension of the Visual Lookup capabilities in the Photos app. Whether you need details about a business, a translation of foreign text, or an explanation of a complex image, this feature makes it possible – so long as you have an up-to-date device.

To access Visual Intelligence, you’ll need an iPhone 16 or iPhone 16 Pro with Apple Intelligence enabled in Settings. Press and hold the Camera Control button on the side of the device to launch this feature – a quick press simply opens the camera, so make sure to hold for a moment before letting go. You’ll see a live camera view with options to capture an image, with buttons like Ask and Search.

Simply take a photo of a place or object and, if recognized, you’ll quickly see information about it. Note this only works with images taken in the moment – unlike features like Live Text, you can’t analyze old photos from your gallery.

What Visual Intelligence can do

In terms of interactions, that’s pretty much it! But it’s useful to know what Visual Intelligence is capable of, so you can decide when to use it. Here’s a brief list of the types of things this feature can help you with.

Business details: point your iPhone at a restaurant or store, then take a photo to reveal key details like hours of operation, delivery options, menus, reservation links, contact information, and customer reviews. (This feature is currently available in the US only.)

Identify living things: curious about a plant or animal in front of you? Visual Intelligence can recognize and provide details about species by simply capturing an image.

Work with text: need to process a block of text quickly? After taking a photo, tap Summarize for a short breakdown, Read Aloud to have Siri narrate the content, or Translate if the text is in another language (currently limited to English).

Make contact: Visual Intelligence can detect contact information visible within images. Tap a phone number to start a call, an email address to compose a message, or a website link to open it in Safari. If a flyer or document contains a date, you’ll see an option to create a Calendar event.

Ask ChatGPT: for more in-depth answers, Visual Intelligence can send a photo to ChatGPT and generate a response when you tap the Ask button. This can be useful for understanding scientific diagrams, historical landmarks, or objects you’re unfamiliar with. You can then type follow-up questions within the ChatGPT interface.

Search Google: If you see an item you want to identify or buy, take a picture and tap Search to run a Google Image Search. This helps you find product listings, visually similar items, or related images.