It's Wednesday, July 15th. Apple opened its rebuilt Siri to everyone in the iOS 27 public beta, now able to read your screen and act across your apps. Spotify started talking back with a new conversational feature.
In Today’s Top Tools, we spotlight some of the most innovative, creative AI apps that we recommend adding to your stack.
TOOL SPOTLIGHT
🖥️ Siri Can Now See What's On Your Screen And Act On It
Image from Apple
Apple opened the iOS 27 public beta on July 13, and its rebuilt Siri is the headline. Siri AI now understands what's on your screen, pulls in your emails and photos for context, and acts across supported apps instead of just answering questions. No developer account required.
Ask Siri AI about whatever is on your screen right now, a webpage, a message thread, a photo, and get an answer grounded in that context.
Tell it to find a photo, summarize a long text thread, or add a calendar event, and it completes the action instead of just describing how to do it.
Trigger it through "Hey Siri," the side button, or a Dynamic Island swipe, with answers pulled from Spotlight search and your own Messages, Mail, and Files.
The iOS 27 public beta opened July 13-14, free through the Apple Beta Software Program at beta.apple.com, no developer account needed. Back up your phone first; betas carry bugs and battery drain. Siri AI ships in English first, with more languages coming, and does not reach the EU right away. Craig Federighi, Apple's SVP of Software Engineering: "With access to broad world knowledge for up-to-date answers on virtually any topic, along with onscreen awareness and personal context understanding, Siri AI can help users take action across apps more naturally than ever."
Apple previewed this Siri at WWDC in June and spent the month since under pressure to prove it actually ships. Opening the public beta to anyone, no developer account required, is Apple saying the assistant is ready for a real stress test at iPhone scale. On-screen awareness is the feature that matters: Siri stops needing you to explain your own context and starts reading it directly, which is the gap that made the old Siri feel ancient next to ChatGPT and Gemini. The catch is the same one Apple always ships with, English-first, US-and-allies-first, EU later, so builders outside that window are watching, not testing.
TOOL SPOTLIGHT
🗣️ Spotify Starts Talking Back In Its Own App
Image from Spotify
Spotify introduced Talk to Spotify on July 14, a conversational AI feature you can type or speak to from the Home or Now Playing screen. It knows your playlists and listening history, so it recommends music, explains songs and artists, and controls playback without you leaving the app.
Type or speak a request from the Home or Now Playing view in Spotify, like "play something for a rainy commute," and get a playlist built around your own taste.
Ask it to explain a song, an artist, or a genre you don't recognize, instead of switching to a search engine mid-listen.
Control playback by voice, skip, queue, or pause a track, hands-free while you're cooking or driving.
Talk to Spotify started rolling out July 14 on iOS and Android, Premium only, ages 18 and up, in the US, Ireland, and Sweden, in English, as a gradual beta.
Spotify is the last big app people open every day that hadn't added a talk-to-it layer. The three-country, Premium-only beta says this is a controlled test, not a broad launch, and the age gate suggests Spotify is being careful about how a conversational agent handles a catalog with explicit content. The real bet is retention: a chat interface gives Spotify a reason to keep you talking to it instead of opening a separate AI app to plan your listening. Watch whether it expands past English and past three countries before treating it as a global feature.
In this section, we feature a few standout opportunities leading AI companies, non-profits, policy groups, and other organizations.
🔬 Work at a Lab/AI Safety
Roles at frontier labs, safety organizations, and research institutions
RESEARCH ENGINEER, UNIVERSES - Anthropic | Remote-Friendly / San Francisco / Seattle / New York | $500,000-$850,000
RESEARCH ENGINEER, FRONTIER EVALS & ENVIRONMENTS - OpenAI | San Francisco, CA | $205,000-$380,000 + Equity
RESEARCH SCIENTIST, MULTIMODAL ALIGNMENT, SAFETY, AND FAIRNESS - Google DeepMind | Kirkland, WA / Mountain View, CA / New York, NY | $147,000-$211,000 + Bonus + Equity
🚀 Work in Industry
Roles at funded AI startups and private companies
AI APPLIED SCIENTIST - Figma | San Francisco, CA / New York, NY / Remote US | $153,000-$376,000
SOFTWARE ENGINEER, GENAI INFERENCE - Databricks | San Francisco, CA | $142,200-$204,600
GROWTH MARKETING MANAGER, AGENT STACK - Vercel | Austin, TX / New York, NY / San Francisco, CA | $176,000-$220,000
SOFTWARE ENGINEER - Glean | Mountain View, CA | $187,741-$234,000
🏛️ Work in AI Policy / Governance
Roles in government, think tanks, NGOs, and policy organizations
AI RAPID RESPONSE FELLOWSHIP - Horizon Institute | Washington, DC | $170,000-$200,000+ (Senior track from $250,000), apply by July 22
RESEARCH FELLOW - GovAI | London / Washington, DC | £85,000-£110,000 (London) or $110,000-$180,000 (DC), closes end of July
DATA SCIENTIST, POLICY - Anthropic | Washington, DC / New York, NY / San Francisco, CA | $285,000-$380,000
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🧑💻 About the Editors
About Noah Frank
Noah is a researcher, innovation strategist, and ex-founder thinking and writing about the future of AI and the workforce. His work and body of research explores the economics of emerging technology and organizational strategy. Outside of AIC, Noah heads research for Centaurian AI.
About Joy Dong
Joy is a news editor, writer, and entrepreneur at the intersection of AI and blockchain. Whether she is demystifying complex systems in her newsletter, TEA, or building streamlined solutions through her automation agency, Ownly, Joy’s mission is to make emerging tech accessible and actionable for everyone.
About Lindsay Gross
Lindsay is an AI engineer, researcher, and writer focused on how AI systems behave in practice and what it takes to make them safe. Her work sits at the intersection of AI safety, governance, and product design, and at AIC she writes about the questions that matter most as these systems scale.