Apple Watch Series 12 and Ultra 4 Bring Major Health Upgrade With AI Powered Audio Intelligence

Apple has announced the Apple Watch Series 12 and Ultra 4 with a redesigned Health app, new Readiness and Health Age features, expanded health tracking and AI-powered Audio Intelligence tools including Siri Recap and Live Rewind.

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In addition to the announcement of its new iPhone, Apple has also unveiled its new smartwatch series Apple Watch Series 12 and Apple Watch Ultra 4. The latest devices are scheduled to be launched on September 18 and the starting price of the new watches is $399. Along with the usual upgrades in hardware and health metrics, Apple is planning to introduce some new AI-driven health and audio-related features that can revolutionize the way you use your Apple Watch.

The first thing that you can look forward to is the revamped version of the Apple Health app. The company will be rolling out a new Readiness score between 0 and 10 that can help you know how ready your body is for the day. The new Health experience will have new Longevity and Health Age sections that bring Apple's health ecosystem more in line with the platforms like Whoop and Garmin.

The new health experience is going to give users more information on their health during the day and night. First of all, Apple is going to expand its Vitals section, which is going to give users more information about key health metrics both during the day and during the night while sleeping. At the same time, Apple is going to offer home movement analysis with the help of an iPhone camera together with the Apple Watch.

Besides, Apple is going to improve its Cycle Tracking feature. It is going to be expanded to support perimenopause and menopause, allowing the users to track even more changes during different reproductive periods of their lives.

But the strangest new feature that has been announced by Apple is Audio Intelligence, which is an AI-based solution, providing a sort of Audio Intelligence equivalent of Visual Intelligence for the Apple Watch.

There are several interesting capabilities of this technology including continuous listening of nearby conversations, summarization of what has been heard using AI, or retrieval of a previously stated phrase. The first feature is known as Siri Recap and it is able to create summaries and highlight points based on nearby conversations. The second capability is known as Live Rewind and is aimed at retrieving a transcript of the last 15 seconds of the conversation. The idea is quite similar to that of Microsoft's Recall, but in reality, it is about real audio.

Privacy is going to be another big point of discussion regarding Audio Intelligence. Apple has stated that Siri Recap is going to be an opt-in and configurable feature and not something that will be turned on by default. Apple has further added that all the raw audio will be processed using a secure exclave and deleted from there immediately without storing anything.

The new Audio Intelligence will also enable various new features like automatic Shazam detection and Sound Recognition. With these features, the Apple Watch will be able to detect sounds or any music playing around without requiring the users to manually do that.

Apple has stated that these new Audio Intelligence features will be made available initially as an English language beta in the latter part of 2026. The Audio Intelligence features will also not be available in Europe upon release.

The new Apple Watch Series 12 and Ultra 4 seem to indicate that Apple is going to take its smartwatch strategy further than just tracking health metrics and providing notifications. The blend of improved health analytics, AI analytics, and the ability to listen for sounds in the environment will allow Apple to make the Apple Watch an even more proactive assistant all day long. On the other hand, the functions related to listening to conversations will definitely bring privacy into the equation.