Apple will reportedly play up the on-device AI prowess of its devices next month during its Worldwide Developers Conference keynote. The company will supposedly highlight how its A-series and M-series chips allow AI models to run 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 throughout WWDC26.
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 WWDC24, the company has yet to launch its AI-powered voice assistant. Due to several setbacks, Apple will use Google’s Gemini AI model to power the next-generation Siri.
The Information reported Thursday 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 specializes 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
In Apple’s planned implementation, complex queries will fall back to cloud processing that uses a larger and more powerful Gemini model, according to The Information. 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 either on-device or through its own Private Cloud Compute infrastructure, which is reportedly powered by Mac Studio computers.
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. Rumors indicate Apple will heavily emphasize AI when it shows off the next versions of its operating systems during its WWDC26 keynote on June 8.
- See also: What to expect from iOS 27 at WWDC26
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.
You can reach out to him at mail[at]rajeshpandey.me.
