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AI-powered Priority Notifications land on iPhones with iOS 18.4 update

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Priority Notifications on an iPhone’s Lock Screen
Nadeem Sarwar / Digital Trends

Apple has just released the first beta build of iOS 18.4 update. Even though it is not loaded with new features, it brings a cool new trick called Priority Notifications. Once enabled, the tool will use AI to automatically surface notifications that are deemed important.

”Priority notifications appear at the top of the stack, letting you know what to pay attention to at a glance,” says Apple. The company doesn’t offer any technical detail on how exactly the onboard AI decides which notifications are important and surfaces them.

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It seems the AI goes through the message contents and accordingly chooses to give them a priority status. I asked my partner to send me a generic “hi” text via SMS, using the Messages app. I didn’t get the alert, because I had the Reduce Interruptions mode enabled to keep me from getting distracted due to app notifications.

When I asked her to send a text with a sense of apparent urgency, I instantly got a Priority Notifications alert with a preview of her message, as you can see in the image above.

Priority Notifications setup on an iPhone
Nadeem Sarwar / Digital Trends

In the same spell, I had received multiple Gmail and Asana notifications, but I didn’t get a priority alert for any of these. When I tried the same trick with Gmail, it didn’t work either.

It seems Apple is focusing more on communication apps, or time-sensitive alerts from other apps, such as impending package delivery. We’ll let you know more as we dig in further with our testing.

Also, keep in mind that this feature has arrived with the first developer beta of iOS 18.4, and that it will have to pass through the public beta channel before the update is released widely for all iPhone users.

How to enable Priority Notifications?

Priority Notifications toggle on an iPhone
Nadeem Sarwar / Digital Trends

In order to enable enable this feature, follow these steps:

  1. Head over to the Settings app on your iPhone.
  2. Scroll down and tap on Notifications.
  3. On the next page, you will see an option called Prioritize Notification. Flick the corresponding toggle and it will be enabled.

Do keep in mind that this is an Apple Intelligence feature, which means it will only work on iPhones with a minimum of 8GB RAM. For now, the choice is limited to the iPhone 15 Pro pair, and the iPhone 16 series phones. Also, you must have Apple Intelligence enabled on your compatible iPhone, which you can accomplish by visiting the dedicated Apple Intelligence & Siri dashboard in the Settings app.

Nadeem Sarwar
Nadeem Sarwar
Managing Editor
Nadeem is the Managing Editor at Digital Trends.
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