On Monday, September 14, Apple released iOS 27.
The same week, a newsletter called AI and Marketing ran the headline "ChatGPT and Claude could soon work like Siri." A few scrolls further down, under "Latest AI Tools," it listed ClearList, the thing I build.
I did not pitch them. I found out because people started clicking through from it.
It is a strange feeling to read an article about the future of voice assistants and then find your own product six bullets below it. So I did the obvious thing and went to check what is actually true. Can you pick up your phone today, say "sell my couch," and have something happen?
The short answer is that it is closer than it was a month ago, and further off than the headlines suggest.
What changed on iPhone
The coverage mashes a few separate things together, so I pulled them apart.
First, Apple's models are now built on Gemini. Apple and Google put out a joint statement on January 12, 2026. The next generation of Apple Foundation Models would be based on Google's Gemini models and cloud technology. At WWDC in June, Apple described the new architecture as co-developed with Google and running on the phone and on Apple's own Private Cloud Compute servers.
Second, Siri can already hand a question to ChatGPT. That part is old news. It arrived in iOS 18.2 in December 2024, and you have to switch it on.
The new part is code suggesting other assistants could join Siri, or replace it. On iOS 27's release day, MacRumors reported code for a feature called Model Delegation. It would let Claude appear as a Siri extension the same way ChatGPT does. The same report found a second mechanism that could swap out Siri's server-side model entirely. Both were found in code. The "Ask..." menu currently only offers ChatGPT, and Apple has not opened Model Delegation to other companies.
So "Siri runs on Gemini" is true in the way "this car runs on a Ferrari engine" might be true. The engine came from somewhere else. You are still driving Apple's car, with Apple's dashboard, and none of the Ferrari's accessories come with it.
What changed on Android
Android got the more useful update, and it got less attention.
In June, Google gave its Gemini Spark agent the ability to use third-party apps, 9to5Google reported. Google's help page says you can connect any service that has an MCP server (the standard plug that lets an AI assistant use a service) by giving Gemini its URL.
So I tried it with ClearList, and the first attempt failed.
I opened an ordinary Gemini chat, pasted https://clearlist.me/api/mcp, and asked it to connect. It told me, politely, that it cannot attach outside servers from inside a chat. When I asked about Spark, it pointed me to Spark's settings instead. That was the right door.
Spark is not a separate app. It is an item in the Gemini menu, on the left, two below New chat, marked BETA. It is there on the web and on the phone. I had walked past it for weeks.
In Spark, open Settings, then Connected Apps, then Add a custom app, and paste the URL there. That time it signed in to ClearList and loaded all 26 of its tools, from creating a listing to confirming a pickup. That is where my testing stops, to be clear: the connection and the tool list are real, and I have not yet run a whole sale through Spark. Regular Gemini chat never got that far, so this only works if Spark is in your menu. The account I tested on is Google AI Pro, so it is not an Ultra-only feature.
Google's other conditions, as written on that page:
- You add custom apps on the web, and then they also work on your phone
- You must be 18 or over and in the US
- You need a personal Google Account (not a work or school one) with Keep Activity turned on
- Custom apps are English only for now
ChatGPT, it turns out, has the same trap. Paste the URL into an ordinary chat and nothing happens. Add it as an app in settings, start a new chat, and it works. If an assistant tells you it cannot connect to something, check whether you knocked on the chat instead of the settings page.
I also owe a correction. In August I wrote that the Gemini chat app does not accept custom MCP servers. For ordinary Gemini chat that is still true. For Spark it stopped being true, which is a nice problem to have. It is also a good reminder that anything I write about AI assistants has a shelf life of about six weeks.
What works today, September 2026
Here is the table I wanted when I started reading about all this.
| Assistant | Can it use an outside selling service? | How | Tested with ClearList? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Claude | Yes | Add ClearList as a connector. Works on the free plan, which allows one connector | Yes |
| ChatGPT | Yes | Add ClearList as an app in developer mode on chatgpt.com, then pick it in a new chat. Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise, Education. Not Free or Go | Yes, on Plus |
| Gemini Spark | Yes | Open Spark from the Gemini menu, then Settings, Connected Apps, Add a custom app. US, 18+, personal Google account, English | Yes, connected and loaded tools |
| Gemini (ordinary chat) | Not in my test | Pasting the address into a chat was refused. Google's help page points to Connected Apps instead | Yes, it refused |
| Siri (iOS 27) | Not that I can find | It can pass a question to ChatGPT. Nothing I have seen shows that path using outside services like ClearList | No |
| Microsoft Copilot (consumer) | No | Custom MCP lives in Microsoft's business tools, not the consumer app | No |
The pattern is that the chat apps got there first and the phone assistants are following. Siri is the most famous name on the list and, today, the least useful for this.
What "selling your stuff by voice" actually needs
It helps to split a sale into the parts a phone assistant could plausibly do and the parts it cannot.
The parts an assistant can already do well:
- Turn photos into a title, description, price, and dimensions
- Publish a page with everything on it
- Answer the fourteenth "is this still available?"
- Tell you who reserved what, and when they said they would come
The parts that stay with you:
- Taking the photos. Your phone can hold the camera. It cannot walk to the garage.
- Meeting the buyer and handing over the item
- Getting paid, which on ClearList happens directly between you and the buyer
There is one more limit, and it is on purpose. When an AI assistant shares your home address with a buyer, it takes two steps. The first step sends nothing. It names exactly who would receive the address, so the assistant can check with you. Only the second step sends it, and only to a buyer who reserved something and verified their email. Every share also sends you an email saying where it went. (Sharing your address yourself, from the inbox in the app, is a different path with its own confirmation.)
That design has a limit. Our server cannot tell whether a human or a model pressed the button, because both arrive with the same key. What it does control is where the address is allowed to go, and that a notification goes out every time. I changed my mind about this rule once in public, in the one MCP tool we refused to build, and that post explains why.
What I would do this week
If you are clearing out a house right now, I would not wait for Siri.
- Use Claude or ChatGPT today. Both work as connectors. In Claude, add it under Connectors, which works on the free plan. In ChatGPT, turn on developer mode on chatgpt.com, create an app with
https://clearlist.me/api/mcp, and start a new chat with ClearList picked from the tools menu. Then drop in photos and ask it to list everything. The full Claude setup is in how to sell your stuff using Claude. - On Android, use Gemini Spark. It is in the Gemini menu, under New chat. Add ClearList once in Spark under Settings, then Connected Apps, and it is there on your phone. I have tested the connection, not a whole sale. If you run one through it, tell me how it went and I will add what you find to this post.
- Be skeptical of anything that says Siri can do this already. I could not find a way. It might arrive in a point release, or next year, or never. Apple has not said.
The headline said ChatGPT and Claude could soon work like Siri.
For selling a couch, Siri still has to catch up to what ChatGPT and Claude can already do… and when it does, someone will still have to take the photo.
Related reading: can ChatGPT sell my stuff? and every ClearList MCP tool, explained.