Apple cut a multi-year deal with Google to use Gemini models as the basis of AI models that reside on Apple devices.
What’s new: Apple will use Google’s technology to drive revamped versions of its AI assistant Siri and other AI features, the companies said in a joint announcement. The fruits of the partnership are expected to start rolling out in spring 2026. The companies did not disclose financial or technical details.
How it works: Bloomberg reported on planned updates of Siri this week as well as rumors of the partnership in November, September, and August. The companies have not confirmed many details in those reports. The information below relies largely from those reports with additional points from the sources noted.
- Apple will pay $1 billion annually, according to Bloomberg. The deal is structured as a cloud-computing contract rather than a license, Financial Times reported.
- Apple will have access to a 1.2 trillion-parameter Gemini model, known internally as Apple Foundation Models Version 10, that was specially modified to run on Apple’s servers. A more capable model, Apple Foundation Models Version 11, will follow later this year, and it may run on Google’s servers. Apple will fine-tune Google models and control user interfaces of applications that call them, The Information reported.
- Two updates of Siri are in the works. The first, which will be part of iOS 26.4 and use Apple Foundation Models Version 10, will enable the software to analyze onscreen images and provide output based on user data. The second, which will be included with iOS 27 and take advantage of Apple Foundation Models 11, will be a voice-and-text chatbot that can search the web, generate media, analyze files, and interact with email, music, photo, and other apps.
- The coming versions of Siri will draw on a device’s screen image as well as past interactions as context such as emails, messages, calendar events, and earlier conversations. It will be able to take multi-step agentic actions such as finding a photo, editing it, and emailing it to a contact. In addition, it will perform tasks that are increasingly common for large language models and agentic systems like telling stories, providing emotional support, and booking travel arrangements.
- Apple will continue to offer access to ChatGPT, which it integrated into its operating system in December. Apple can continue to route Siri queries to OpenAI models if its own models can’t answer, and Siri can ask users if they want ChatGPT to answer. However, OpenAI technology will not serve as the heart of Apple’s AI features. Although OpenAI CEO Sam Altman had hoped he might gain billions of dollars in revenue from Apple and supplant Google as Apple’s longstanding partner in search, OpenAI made a “conscious decision” not to provide models to Apple so it could pursue its own initiative — led by the iPhone’s original lead designer Jony Ive — to build post-smartphone mobile devices, according to Financial Times.
Behind the news: The partnership signals Apple’s retreat from building proprietary AI software and infrastructure after periodic reports that it was trying. As early as July, Apple was evaluating models from Anthropic, Google, and OpenAI as potential replacements for its own technology, Bloomberg reported last year.
- In June, the company said a planned update of Siri was delayed because the system did not meet internal standards of quality. It had announced the update one year earlier.
- In 2023, Apple built a framework for large language models and used it to develop a chatbot dubbed Apple GPT — for internal use only.
- While rivals like Google, Microsoft, and OpenAI dove into generative AI, Siri became outpaced by subsequent developments and Apple came to be viewed as falling behind big-tech rivals in AI.
Why it matters: In teaming up with Google, Apple is withdrawing from an immensely costly competition to build cutting-edge AI software and infrastructure. At the same time, it’s shoring up its own most lucrative product, the iPhone, which accounts for half its revenue. The deal puts iOS devices back on track to deliver competitive AI capabilities in the short term — despite the irony that Apple’s biggest competitor in mobile devices is Google.
We’re thinking: Google pays $20 billion annually to Apple for the privilege of supplying the default search engine on iPhones. Apple’s payment to Google of $1 billion for access to cutting-edge models — with no requirement to share data — is inexpensive in comparison, and likely reflects Apple’s deftness in playing Google, OpenAI, and Anthropic against each other. Apple’s control over the iPhone has tremendous market power.