Camera as a real-world sensor
With iOS 27, Visual Intelligence moves beyond niche plant and landmark identification to acquire two high-frequency everyday uses. The first involves health: pointing the Camera at a nutrition label allows the system to extract calories and macronutrients and automatically log them to the Health app, without manual input. MacRumors and Tom's Guide both confirmed this feature among keynote announcements.
Business cards finally made useful
The second feature addresses a problem users have faced for decades: photographing a business card and then having to retype the data manually. Visual Intelligence extracts phone numbers, addresses, and other information and proposes them directly for addition to Contacts. According to ZeroHedge and MacRumors, recognition also works on general printed material, not just formal business cards.
Considerations
Both scenarios were already partially covered by third-party apps like Google Lens or dedicated OCR scanners. Apple's native integration brings the advantage of direct access to system apps without intermediate steps, which matters for workflow smoothness. Accuracy in real-world conditions — especially for nutrition labels with small text or irregular layouts — remains to be verified.