How to use Visual Intelligence with screenshots in iOS 27

Screenshots are getting a lot smarter in iOS 27.

With Visual Intelligence, your iPhone can understand what’s shown on your screen and help you find more information about it. You can search for an object, ask questions about what you’re looking at, recognize text, and even take actions without first saving the screenshot and opening another app.

Here’s how to use it.

Step 1: Take a screenshot

First, open whatever you want Visual Intelligence to look at.

This could be:

• A product you see online

• A plant or animal

• A recent photo

• An invitation or event

• A piece of text

• An object you want to identify

Now take a screenshot by pressing:

Side Button + Volume Up

Your screenshot will open on your screen.

iOS GUIDE

Step 2: Look for the Visual Intelligence options

At the bottom of the screenshot, you’ll see new options that let you interact with what’s on your screen.

Depending on the content, you can see options including:

• Ask — Ask a question about what’s shown on your screen.

• Search — Visually search the web for the object or image.

iOS may also automatically show other actions when it recognizes useful information.

Step 3: Search for an object

See something in a screenshot that you want to know more about?

Tap Search.

Visual Intelligence will analyze the screenshot and look for visually similar objects and information.

You can also drag your finger over a specific object in the screenshot to select only that part of the image.

For example, if you take a screenshot of a room and like a particular chair, select the chair and search for similar products.

This makes visual search much more useful because you don’t have to search the entire screenshot.

Step 4: Ask about what’s on your screen

You can also tap Ask to ask a question about the content of your screenshot.

For example, you could take a screenshot and ask:

• “What kind of plant is this?”

• “What product is this?”

• “Can you explain this text?”

• “What is this building?”

Visual Intelligence uses the information on your screen as context, so you don’t have to describe everything yourself.

Step 5: Use automatic actions

Visual Intelligence can do more than just search.
Depending on what appears in your screenshot, iOS can automatically offer useful actions.

For example, if you take a screenshot of an event or invitation, you may see an option to:

Add to Calendar

If there’s a website in the screenshot, you may be able to open it directly.
For longer pieces of text, Visual Intelligence can also offer options such as:

• Summarize

• Read Aloud

It can even recognize certain plants and animals and show you more information about them.

Step 6: Save or delete your screenshot

Once you’re finished using Visual Intelligence, you can decide whether you actually want to keep the screenshot.

Tap the close button if you want to delete it.

Or tap Done and save it to Photos if you want to keep it.

That means you can use Visual Intelligence to quickly look something up and then immediately delete the screenshot afterward.

Pro tip: Turn on Enhanced Visual Search

Want to make searching through your photo library even smarter? Make sure Enhanced Visual Search is enabled.

Go to:
Settings → Apps → Photos → Search

Then turn on:
Enhanced Visual Search

With this enabled, your iPhone can better understand the content of your photos and screenshots, including objects, places and landmarks. This means you can search your Photos library using words that describe what you’re looking for, instead of having to remember exactly when you took the photo or screenshot.

For example, try searching for something like “Eiffel Tower,” “dog,” “beach,” or “car” and let your iPhone find matching photos for you.

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