How to use Visual Intelligence on macOS Golden Gate
This guide walks through how to use Visual Intelligence on macOS Golden Gate: what your Mac needs before turning it on, both keyboard shortcuts that trigger it, the in-app option built into apps like Safari, and which questions are actually worth asking it. Visual Intelligence has lived on the iPhone since the iPhone 16, and Golden Gate brings the same idea to the Mac, letting you select something on screen and ask Siri about it instead of typing out a search (MacPaw).
Hands-on testing from MacPaw and AppleInsider points to one verdict worth knowing before you try it: treat it as a fast way to get a starting answer, not a research tool. Nothing in that testing suggests copying its output into a report, a health decision, or anything you'd need to cite later. The steps below reflect the shipping Golden Gate release where confirmed, and flag the spots where earlier beta testing might behave differently on your installed copy.
What your Mac needs before Visual Intelligence works
Visual Intelligence only runs on macOS Golden Gate, and only on Apple Silicon. Golden Gate is the first macOS release since the mid-2000s to drop Intel support entirely, so it requires an M1 chip or newer (Ars Technica).
It's not a standalone app you install separately. Visual Intelligence is part of Apple Intelligence and Siri, and in the shipping Golden Gate build, Apple Intelligence is effectively unavoidable on any internet-connected install. The old toggle that let you turn it off and delete its AI models has been removed (Ars Technica).
There's one notable exception. Booting Golden Gate offline, or running it in a virtual machine, skips the Apple Intelligence download entirely, which is presumably how Macs in the EU will behave, since Apple hasn't committed to shipping Apple Intelligence there yet (Ars Technica).
If Siri doesn't respond to a Visual Intelligence request after you've updated, check System Settings, then Apple Intelligence & Siri, and choose Try Siri AI, or join the waitlist if that option isn't showing yet. That step comes from MacPaw's pre-release beta guide from three weeks ago, so treat it as a troubleshooting fallback rather than something you should expect to do on a normal shipping install (MacPaw).
Free up disk space before you update. Apple Intelligence's on-device models download automatically the first time a freshly restored Golden Gate Mac connects to the internet. Ars Technica's testing this week measured about 14GB used on an M1 MacBook Air and a MacBook Neo, and 22.42GB on an M3 MacBook Air; a Mac upgrading from Tahoe with Apple Intelligence previously disabled needed 17GB more space than it had before (Ars Technica). Those numbers come from a handful of tested Macs, not a universal spec, so treat 15 to 25GB as a planning buffer rather than a guarantee.
You don't need Apple's top-tier hardware for this specifically. The more demanding AFM 3 Core Advanced model, which requires an M3-family chip and at least 12GB of RAM, currently powers only expressive Siri voice replies and improved dictation, according to this week's Ars Technica review. Visual Intelligence itself doesn't require it.
So before you update: confirm your Mac is M1 or newer, clear roughly 15 to 25GB of free space, and skip buying new hardware just for this feature. Most Apple Silicon Macs already clear the bar.
How to use Visual Intelligence on Mac with Shift-Command-6
Reach for this shortcut when you want to select a specific piece of the screen, like a paragraph, a product photo, or a line of text.
- Press Shift-Command-6. The cursor turns into a crosshair (MacPaw).
- Click a single point, or click and drag over a larger area you want information about.
- Choose Ask Siri and type your question, or click Image Search to run a Google image search on the selection (MacPaw; AppleInsider).
- Watch for extra options depending on what's in the selection. Point it at a food photo, for example, and a "Look Up Nutrition" button may appear (MacPaw).
AppleInsider's testing from three months ago pointed to this shortcut's real advantage: finer control. Instead of capturing a whole window, you drag over just the part you care about.
How to use Visual Intelligence on Mac with Shift-Command-5
Use this one when you're already in the screenshot workflow, or want the full capture toolbar instead of dragging a precise selection.
- Press Shift-Command-5 to open the standard screenshot toolbar, now with a Visual Intelligence icon next to the usual capture tools (MacPaw; AppleInsider).
- Click the Visual Intelligence icon.
- Click any Mac window you want analyzed (AppleInsider).
- Choose from the options that appear, same as with Shift-Command-6.
Ask Siri about a selection directly in Safari
There's a third path that skips screenshots entirely. In apps like Safari, you can select text or an image on the page, then ask Siri about that selection without leaving the app (MacRumors). It's the quickest option when you're already reading something and just want a quick answer, rather than capturing a piece of the screen to analyze separately.
Image Search and privacy: what's confirmed, what isn't
Image Search reliability has been inconsistent across the testing available so far. AppleInsider's testing three months ago found clicking it led to a Google page that wasn't functioning; MacPaw's testing three weeks ago found it working, but called the results "decidedly mixed" (AppleInsider; MacPaw). Both rounds happened on pre-release software, so test it yourself once on your installed copy before you count on it for anything time-sensitive.
One thing is clear about Image Search specifically: clicking it sends your selection out to Google. What's less clear is how Ask Siri handles a selection you type a question about. None of the available testing says whether that content is processed entirely on-device or sent to Apple's servers. Until that's spelled out somewhere official, it's safer to avoid selecting financial statements, medical information, passwords, or anything else sensitive with either shortcut.
What beta testing shows Visual Intelligence handles well
A MacPaw tester reported, three weeks ago, that Visual Intelligence retrieved a guitar amplifier's identity and price from a shopping screenshot, and pulled opening hours from a restaurant's website when asked (MacPaw). That's one tester's experience on beta software, not an independently verified benchmark, but it's a useful signal for what the feature is aimed at.
The same tester found it translated a Spanish-language selection, summarized a text-heavy area of the screen, and turned a gig listing into a calendar event on request (MacPaw). Separately, MacRumors' hands-on from three months ago found that Siri can identify plants and animals and answer general questions about a selected image, capabilities carried over from the iPhone version of Visual Intelligence (MacRumors).
The pattern worth copying from this limited testing is picking tasks you can quickly double-check yourself: a price you can confirm on the retailer's site, an hour you can verify by calling ahead, a translation you can sanity-check against context. None of this proves the feature is broadly accurate. It's a reasonable starting point for exactly that kind of low-stakes question, and nothing more.
When to use Visual Intelligence on Mac, and when to double-check it
AppleInsider's testing three months ago described Visual Intelligence's answers as "as likely to be wrong as with any AI chatbot," and MacPaw's tester separately recommends confirming anything it gives you against a second source (AppleInsider; MacPaw).
Nutrition lookups are the clearest case for caution. AppleInsider found the "Look Up Nutrition" option often fails to recognize food as food at all, and running the exact same photo through it twice can return completely different results (AppleInsider). Treat any nutrition output as a guess, never as dietary guidance.
Copying results out is also a limitation worth knowing before you rely on this. AppleInsider's testing found no copy button and no way to select text in the Siri response window, including nutrition breakdowns; MacPaw's tester separately reported not being able to copy the information the feature displayed (AppleInsider; MacPaw). Anything worth keeping has to be retyped by hand. Response speed doesn't help matters either: AppleInsider described answers as "not very quick," which cuts into the convenience that makes the feature worth reaching for in the first place.
| Use it for | Double-check before acting | Skip entirely |
|---|---|---|
| Quick translations | Prices, business hours | Nutrition or health decisions |
| Identifying an object, plant, or animal | Any detail you're about to rely on elsewhere | Financial, medical, or password content |
| Summarizing on-screen text or building a calendar event | Image Search results, until you've tested them yourself | Anything you need to copy or save without retyping |
What to do now
If your Mac is M1 or newer and you have the free space to spare, updating to Golden Gate gets you Visual Intelligence with no separate setup beyond what happens automatically once you're online. Try both shortcuts on a few everyday screen questions first: a menu, a product page, a paragraph in another language.
Don't treat what it tells you as final. Confirm anything involving pricing, hours, or nutrition against a second source, and hold off feeding it anything sensitive until there's clearer word on how Ask Siri handles what you select. Test Image Search yourself before leaning on it for anything time-sensitive; the results so far have been too inconsistent across two rounds of beta testing to trust blind.
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