Apple has removed the option to disable Apple Intelligence in macOS 27 Golden Gate, the operating system update released on September 16, 2026. A toggle that previously let users turn off Apple Intelligence and delete the gigabytes of AI models it downloads to disk is no longer present. Apple Intelligence defines the Golden Gate release, spanning its marketing, features, chip requirements and disk footprint.

Golden Gate is the first macOS release since the mid-2000s that does not run on any Intel Macs, six years after the start of the Apple Silicon era. The update requires an Apple M1 chip or newer, dropping the last handful of 2019 and 2020-era Intel Macs that could officially run macOS 26 Tahoe. All supported Macs can run Apple Intelligence, which never ran on Intel-based hardware.

Apple Intelligence in Golden Gate is powered by the AFM 3 Core model, built in collaboration with Google. A more capable AFM 3 Core Advanced model, described as Apple's most powerful on-device model, carries additional hardware requirements. Only M4, M5 and M6-based Macs clear the bar. M1 or M2 Macs with 16GB of RAM or more are unsupported, as are M3 Macs with 8GB of RAM. The only features requiring the advanced model so far are more expressive voice capabilities for the new Siri and improved voice dictation.

Underneath the AI changes, Golden Gate addresses design issues from macOS 26 Tahoe, adds incremental improvements and promises under-the-hood optimizations for speed and reliability. The combination pairs hard-to-ignore AI changes with an understated update that in other years might have been called a Snow Leopard release.

Owners of Intel Macs have dwindling options. Macs that still officially support macOS 15 Sequoia or macOS 26 Tahoe can keep running those systems until security and Safari updates stop in the fall of 2027 and 2028, respectively, assuming Apple follows past practice. Older Macs stopping at macOS 14 Sonoma or earlier can keep running unsupported versions, though that exposes users to security vulnerabilities.

The OpenCore Legacy Patcher project, which once enabled newer macOS versions on older hardware, has foundered as Apple removed more Intel-native code. Its last official update was nearly a year ago, and it has never supported macOS Tahoe at a software level or the Apple T2 chip at a hardware level. Windows 10 via Boot Camp remains supported on many of these Macs, but its security updates are drying up, and unsupported Windows 11 installs come with quirks. Linux runs well enough on 2017-and-older models generally, but T2-chip Macs use that coprocessor for critical I/O functions with hit-or-miss Linux support.

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