This year, AI was woven throughout apps in ways that weren’t always obvious.

AI helped everyone by making impressive video edits, suggesting song melodies to kick-start the creative process, and pulling off other remarkable feats. It also handled everyday details, such as breaking big projects into manageable steps or finding the perfect mystery novel to bring on vacation.

Here are just a few ways the App Store Award finalists leveraged the technology to empower anyone with an iPhone, an iPad, or a Mac. And they’re just getting started.

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This standout word processor takes the hassle out of drafting academic papers by handling the messy details of formatting citations and bibliographies, so you can focus on proving your point.

AI magic: Drag and drop a PDF of a journal article into the app and Essayist will use Apple’s Foundation Models to add the details to your bibliography.

This photo editor for Mac is powerful enough for complex edits. With the very cool Command Bar, just start typing the feature you want to access and the app will guide you right to it.

AI magic: The Select Subject and Remove Background tools use machine learning to precisely isolate subjects, change the background, and create composite images. Another helpful AI feature, Super Resolution, lets you scale images up without losing resolution and clarity.

Create an inventory of your belongings, scan receipts and warranties, catalogue your vinyl collection, and more.

AI magic: When adding a new item to your inventory, the app uses Apple Intelligence to automatically assign it to one of your existing categories.

This phenomenal visual planner helps prioritize tasks and create order. It turns cluttered calendars into colourful, emoji-filled timelines—and to-do lists into a set of clear priorities.

AI magic: Chat with the AI co-planner to shift appointments and quickly add items to your calendar or to-do list. We love how the app suggests subtasks to break down big to-dos into actionable steps.

Part mobile recording studio, part creative community, BandLab lets musicians share their work and collaborate with one another at any stage of the process.

AI magic: With the AI-powered SongStarter, pick a genre (like house, acoustic pop, or drift phonk) and the app will suggest melodies and chord progressions. Or use BandLab’s Splitter tool to isolate the vocal and instrument tracks in a recording, then adjust the speed and pitch.

This app is an all-in-one powerhouse for video creators who want to edit manually or have AI take the reins. We never thought syncing multiple cameras or creating podcasts and reaction videos would be so easy.

AI magic: Save hours selecting, splitting, and trimming clips with Auto Edit. Detail also uses Apple’s Foundation Models to suggest topics, scripts, titles, and captions for your videos.

This visually sharp daily planner takes your individual tasks and appointments and maps them out onto a step-by-step timeline—and even recommends the best moments to take short breaks.

AI magic: Get a briefing on what lies ahead, move multiple appointments by 30 minutes just by asking, and import your school schedule by snapping a pic.

Over the last decade, Be My Eyes has connected users who are blind or who have low vision with sighted volunteers offering visual assistance for everyday tasks, like reading street signs, sorting laundry, and checking the thermostat temperature.

AI magic: With the Be My AI feature, snap a photo of anything and the app will read aloud a detailed description of what’s in the frame.

This grassroots book tracker uses methodically researched filters to get to the heart of what book lovers are looking for.

AI magic: The app uses machine learning to provide personalized recommendations of books you might like.

Apple Intelligence is available in beta. Some features may not be available in all regions or languages.