An artificial intelligence assistant that also does the thing
There are plenty of AI apps on the iPhone. Almost all of them end a conversation with a piece of text. Nia ends it with the event in your calendar, the reminder ringing and the photo saved in your album.
An AI chat on the phone knows a lot and cannot touch anything. A system assistant can touch things and understands little. Nia sits in the gap between the two: it understands a long sentence in plain language and then turns it into real actions on the apps of your iPhone, using the frameworks Apple gives to third party apps.
This is not a simulated integration or a "coming soon" screen: it is 63 actions built, each with its result card, its permission and, where it can be done, its undo button.
What you ask each one for
Not to say the rest are bad, but so you know when Nia helps you and when it does not.
| You want… | An AI chat | Siri | Nia |
|---|---|---|---|
| It explains something or writes you a text | Yes, that is its job | Not much | Yes |
| Create an event with an alert and a place, dictated in one go | No | Partly | Yes |
| It remembers what you told it last month | Sometimes | No | Yes |
| Chain three actions in a single sentence | No | No | Yes |
| Listen with the iPhone locked and the app closed | No | Yes | No, and it says so |
| Write you an iOS Shortcut that does not exist | No | No | Yes |
| Something runs tomorrow at eight without you | No | No | Yes |
| Generate an image and save it to Photos | Generate yes, save no | No | Yes |
One sentence, four tools, one turn
This is what separates an assistant that does things from an assistant that answers: an ordinary sentence becomes several actions without you splitting them up.
"Add dinner with Luis on Thursday at 9 at Casa Lucio, remind me an hour before and tell him I have booked"
- Creates the event with its place geocoded and its length.
- Sets the alert an hour before, inside the event itself.
- Resolves Luis in your address book, on the phone.
- Opens WhatsApp with the message written, waiting for you to press send.
And all of that counts as one command, not four.
The iPhone apps Nia really touches
With the system frameworks, on the device. No odd bridges and nothing else for you to install.
About AI assistants on the iPhone
What is Nia?
Nia is an AI voice assistant for iPhone. You speak to it or type to it in plain language and it actually does things on your phone: create events in Calendar, set reminders and alarms, find places, generate images, read your Gmail, turn the lights on or leave you a WhatsApp message written and ready. It is not a chat that explains how to do it: it is an assistant that does it.
What is Nia?
Nia is an AI voice assistant for iPhone. You speak to it or type to it in plain language and it actually does things on your phone: create events in Calendar, set reminders and alarms, find places, generate images, read your Gmail, turn the lights on or leave you a WhatsApp message written and ready. It is not a chat that explains how to do it: it is an assistant that does it.
How is Nia different from Siri?
Siri is the system assistant and it wins on one thing: it listens with the iPhone locked and the app closed, because it runs on a coprocessor no third party app can reach. Nia wins on the rest: it understands a long sentence with several conditions, remembers what you tell it, chains several actions in one turn, searches Google, reads your documents and gives you routines and jobs that run on their own. And when it cannot do something, it says so, instead of opening a web search.
Does Nia replace Siri?
Not entirely, and that is on purpose. Siri is still the way in when the phone is locked: you can say "Hey Siri, ask Nia what I have tomorrow" and Siri answers with Nia's answer without opening the app. Nia also lives in the widget, in Control Centre and on the Action button. What Nia is for is what happens after the sentence, not the sentence.
Is Nia always listening?
No. The wake word "Hey Nia" is switched on by hand in Settings, with its battery warning, and it only works with the app open or with background audio mode on. With the app closed, Nia does not listen, and that is not a fault: iOS does not allow it to any app other than Siri. While it is listening, the orange microphone indicator is on, as it should be.
Does my voice leave the iPhone?
Dictation and the wake word are recognised on the device itself. What travels to the server is the text of what you said, so the model can understand it. Group radio is the exception: when you turn it on and hold to speak, the voice notice travels to the server to reach people in that group who turned their listening on. Reading a receipt, translating text, Nia Studio masks and your location also stay on the phone, with location rounded to a kilometre before it leaves.
Shall we begin?
Download Nia, tell it the first thing and see what happens. The free plan asks for no card.
Free to start. Requires iOS 18. In English and Spanish.