Apple will reportedly talk about the on-device AI prowess of its devices at WWDC 2026. It will supposedly highlight how its A and M-series chips allow it to run AI models locally for better efficiency and privacy.
With Apple’s competitors aggressively pushing cloud-based AI features, the company will likely position on-device AI as a key advantage of its ecosystem.
Apple wants Gemini to run locally on your iPhone
Apple remains significantly behind its rivals in the AI race. Despite unveiling a revamped Siri at WWDC 2024, the company has yet to launch its AI-powered voice assistant publicly.
Due to several setbacks, Apple will now use Google’s Gemini AI model to power the next-generation Siri.
The Information reports that Apple is training a smaller version of the Gemini model that can run locally on its devices. As part of this, the company is looking to further shrink the model.
It’s even considering acquiring Liquid AI, a Massachusetts-based startup that specialises in running AI models locally.
On-device AI processing for common queries should deliver a better experience thanks to faster response times. It is also more privacy-friendly, since the data does not need to be sent to the cloud. In comparison, most Android phones still rely heavily on cloud processing even for relatively simple AI tasks.
Complex queries will still use the cloud
More complex queries will fallback to cloud processing that will use a powerful and larger Gemini model. For this, Apple will use Google Cloud, powered by Nvidia’s hardware. All data will be encrypted for privacy reasons.
Apple currently handles all Apple Intelligence processing through its own Private Cloud Compute infrastructure, which is reportedly powered by Mac Studios.
However, the more advanced and complex Google Gemini models reportedly do not run efficiently on Apple’s AI hardware. This is forcing the company to rely on Google and NVIDIA for processing instead.
On-device or cloud, here’s hoping the revamped Siri and other Apple Intelligence features in iOS 27 help Apple catch up to the competition.
Rajesh has been writing about consumer technology for over a decade, with a strong focus on iPhones, Macs and Apple’s ecosystem. He enjoys digging into Apple software updates, hardware changes, and discovering new Mac apps that make work faster and more enjoyable.
