Google’s Gemini AI is set to power the long-promised overhaul of Apple’s Siri voice assistant, turning months of speculation into confirmation after Apple made the partnership official in a statement released Monday.
Apple worked for years on its own large language models to provide Siri with a much-needed intelligence boost. But in the end, Cupertino had to outsource the AI technology to Google, another tech giant with which it both competes and cooperates.
Google Gemini will power smarter Siri
Apple’s poorly organized efforts to infuse Siri with modern artificial intelligence left the voice assistant trailing rivals. While competitors — including OpenAI, Google and Microsoft — rapidly rolled out large language models and more conversational voice assistants, Apple struggled with leadership changes and shifting technical strategies.
The result? More than 18 months after Apple announced “the start of a new era for Siri” at WWDC24, the Mac maker has been forced to look outside the company for the underlying tech to fulfill its promises.
“Apple and Google have entered into a multi-year collaboration under which the next generation of Apple Foundation Models will be based on Google’s Gemini models and cloud technology,” Google wrote in Monday’s statement. “After careful evaluation, Apple determined that Google’s Al technology provides the most capable foundation for Apple Foundation Models and is excited about the innovative new experiences it will unlock for Apple users.”
With a self-imposed spring 2026 deadline looming for the launch of the AI-powered Siri, Apple needed to strike a deal.
Privacy remains a priority
Apple emphasizes that its implementation of AI under the umbrella term Apple Intelligence protects user privacy. That won’t change with the new Siri, even with an AI model developed by Google providing the underlying technology.
“Apple Intelligence will continue to run on Apple devices and Private Cloud Compute, while maintaining Apple’s industry-leading privacy standards,” said Google.
According to an earlier report, rather than giving Google access to user data, the two companies will instead exchange money: reportedly about $1 billion a year. Of course, Apple can simply subtract that from the approximately $20 billion Google pays each year to remain Safari’s default search engine.
Apple itself didn’t reveal details of the deal Monday, which isn’t surprising. Apple’s top management had to be reluctant to admit the company can’t keep up in the AI race. Especially since it was forced to turn to the maker of the rival Android operating system.
Also, Apple supposedly isn’t dropping its own efforts to develop AI via large language models. The company’s long-term goal is to eventually pull Gemini out of Siri.
Ed Hardy has been writing full-time about tech for 25 years, and using it for much longer than that. His intro to Apple was a Macintosh Classic II (which he still has), but now he uses a 13-inch iPad Pro as his primary computer. He’s written for NotebookReview, TabletPCReview, and Brighthand, as well as other sites.
