The bigger clerk in your pocket needs 12 GB. The base iPhone 17 doesn't have it. Craig Federighi told WWDC on 8 June that Apple's most powerful on-device Apple Intelligence model, and the features it enables, will ship on the most capable iPhone, iPad, and Mac systems. The floor is 12 GB of unified memory. That list is the iPhone 17 Pro, the 17 Pro Max, and the iPhone Air. Plus iPads with M4 or later and 12 GB, Macs with M3 or later and 12 GB, and Vision Pro with M5.

IPHONE 15 / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)