Apple’s Shortcuts app has always been one of the iPhone’s most capable tools—and one of its least approachable. Apple Intelligence changes that equation by letting users describe an automation in ordinary language instead of assembling every action manually. As Engadget reports, the feature can be surprisingly useful when it works, turning a traditionally fiddly power-user feature into something more inviting for everyone.
On supported iPhones, open Shortcuts, create a new shortcut, and describe what you want it to do. Apple Intelligence can generate and name the shortcut, after which you can run it, inspect the actions it selected, or explain what needs to change. Apple’s Shortcuts User Guide says users can modify the result either by describing an adjustment or by editing the actions directly.
That natural-language layer matters because Shortcuts is fundamentally a visual programming environment. Its building blocks can connect Apple apps, third-party app actions, web services, files, notifications, and device settings, but users traditionally needed to understand how those pieces fit together. Apple Intelligence does not eliminate that underlying complexity; it provides a starting point that users can test and refine rather than forcing them to begin with a blank canvas.
The feature also works in the other direction: Apple’s official instructions explain that a shortcut can use the Use Model action to process text or other input with an Apple Intelligence model. Depending on the workflow, users can select an on-device model or use Private Cloud Compute, then pass the generated result into later actions. Apple introduced these intelligent actions as a way to make model output part of a larger automation instead of leaving it as a one-off chat response.
That opens the door to practical routines: summarizing selected text, transforming notes into another format, extracting information, or combining an AI response with actions in other apps. The best results will still come from precise instructions and a quick check of the generated workflow. AI-created automations can misunderstand ambiguous requests, choose an inconvenient sequence, or require permissions before they can complete a task.
Availability remains the important qualifier. Apple Intelligence requires compatible hardware and software, including the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max and newer supported iPhone models, along with the appropriate regional and language support. Apple’s overview of Apple Intelligence positions “Describe a Shortcut” as part of a broader effort to make automation accessible without stripping away the control that experienced users value. For iPhone owners who have ignored Shortcuts because it looked like work, that may be the feature’s biggest advantage: it makes experimentation cheap.
