Apple adds AI to Pages, Keynote and Numbers, but it will only speak English

Writing a text in Pages, building an animated presentation in Keynote, choosing the right chart in Numbers: Apple now wants to hand these tasks to an artificial intelligence. On October 27, the company announced an assistant built into its three office apps. According to its press release, it relies on "Apple and OpenAI models." Apple presented the new features with the Creator Studio update, its subscription bundle of creative software.

The second change is less noticeable. The three apps are opening up to MCP (Model Context Protocol), an open standard that lets outside AI agents plug into a piece of software. These agents will be able to read the contents of documents, edit them and launch automated actions. Both features are in beta and will arrive in November, according to Apple.

What the assistant promises to do

According to Apple, the assistant "understands the context of the document." In Pages, it writes, restructures and polishes text. In Keynote, it helps design, animate and edit slides. In Numbers, it does calculations, suggests the right chart type with a one-gesture preview, and builds tables drawing on its general knowledge. These are the vendor's promises: no independent evaluation is available before release.

It will require a device compatible with Apple Intelligence, running iOS 27, iPadOS 27 or macOS 27. The three apps remain free. The press release presents these new AI features as intended "for subscribers" of Creator Studio, without explicitly saying whether the assistant will be reserved for them. In the United States, the subscription costs $12.99 per month or $129 per year.

What about French users?

This is the main limitation. Apple says the assistant will work only in US English. For the assistant, the press release names no other country or language, and gives no timeline for French. Apple has already delayed AI features in Europe, as with the HomeView smart display, which won't be sold in the EU for lack of Siri AI.

MCP support is not presented with the same language restriction. The press release lists only macOS 27 as a requirement, while describing it as built on the same platform as the assistant. A European user could therefore, in principle, have the AI agent of their choice work on their Pages or Numbers documents before getting Apple's assistant. This point remains to be confirmed at launch.

Who will be able to touch your documents?

Opening files to outside agents is not trivial. An agent that reads a document can also read booby-trapped instructions hidden inside it, the well-known prompt injection. Yet Apple has published neither the list of actions available to agents, nor how permissions will be granted, nor how users will approve changes. The press release also says nothing about how data sent to OpenAI's models is handled.

For IT managers, the November release will be a chance to check two things: whether MCP access can be disabled or restricted on managed Macs, and where the documents processed by the assistant travel.