Apple Taps Google’s Gemini to Power Next Siri in Major AI Partnership

Apple confirmed Monday that its long-promised overhaul of Siri and a new wave of Apple Intelligence features will rely on Google’s Gemini artificial intelligence models, marking one of the deepest technology partnerships ever between the two rivals and placing Google’s AI at the core of more than 2 billion Apple devices.

In coordinated statements and briefings on Jan. 12, the companies said they had entered a multi-year collaboration under which “the next generation of Apple Foundation Models will be based on Google’s Gemini models and cloud technology” and “will help power future Apple Intelligence features, including a more personalized Siri coming this year.”

Apple will continue to market the services under its own Apple Intelligence brand and to operate them through its existing privacy framework, but the large language models handling many of the most complex tasks will be derived from Google’s Gemini family and run on infrastructure tied to Google’s cloud technology.

A rare admission—and a strategic win for Google

The agreement amounts to a rare acknowledgment by Apple that it needed outside help on a core capability expected to define the next decade of consumer technology. It is also a major strategic win for Google’s parent, Alphabet, which has been racing Microsoft and OpenAI to supply the default AI “plumbing” for mainstream devices and services.

In a statement provided to CNBC, Apple said that “after careful evaluation, we determined that Google’s technology provides the most capable foundation for Apple Foundation Models and we’re excited about the innovative new experiences it will unlock for our users.”

Google echoed the language of a “multi-year collaboration” and said Gemini will “help power future Apple Intelligence features, including a more personalized Siri coming this year,” while emphasizing that Apple will continue to run those features under its own privacy rules.

Privacy promises and “Private Cloud Compute”

Both companies stressed that, despite the reliance on Google’s models, Gemini will not operate like a traditional Google Cloud service that ingests customer data directly. Instead, Apple will continue to route cloud-based AI tasks through its Private Cloud Compute system, a set of Apple-controlled servers that the company says process data ephemerally and are designed so that neither Apple nor its partners can retain or inspect individual user requests.

Google has said it will not receive Apple user data as part of the Siri and Apple Intelligence deal. Apple has said data sent to Private Cloud Compute is not stored or used to build personal profiles and that it will publish technical descriptions of the system to allow independent security review.

Siri at the center of the deal

The immediate focus of the partnership is Siri, which Apple introduced in 2011 with the iPhone 4S and which has since been widely criticized for lagging behind Amazon’s Alexa, Google Assistant and newer chatbots such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

At its Worldwide Developers Conference in 2024, Apple previewed a more capable version of Siri that could understand context from on-screen content, perform multi-step tasks across apps and draw on personal information such as messages and calendar entries. That upgrade has been delayed, with Apple acknowledging that the work was taking longer than expected.

Under the new arrangement, the revamped Siri will be powered by Apple’s own foundation models built on top of Gemini. Technology news outlet MacRumors has reported that Apple is targeting iOS 26.4 in the March or April 2026 timeframe for the first major release, with other reports suggesting a staggered rollout through late 2026 by language and region.

In practice, Apple says simpler tasks and highly sensitive operations will still be handled on device, using models running directly on iPhones, iPads and Macs. More complex queries—such as long-form writing assistance, multi-document summaries or intricate automation across apps—will be routed to the cloud, where the Gemini-based Apple models will run under the Private Cloud Compute framework.

Beyond Siri: broader “Apple Intelligence” implications

The scope of the deal extends beyond Siri. Apple and Google have both said Gemini will help power “future Apple Intelligence features,” but neither has detailed precisely which existing tools will move to the new models.

Apple Intelligence, first unveiled in 2024, already includes notification summaries, system-wide writing tools, and generative image features such as “Genmoji.” It remains unclear whether those features will be migrated to Gemini-based models or whether Gemini will primarily underpin new capabilities that have not yet shipped.

The financial details of the agreement have not been disclosed. Previous reporting by Bloomberg, cited by several technology outlets, indicated that Apple had been negotiating to pay about $1 billion per year for access to a custom Gemini model of roughly 1.2 trillion parameters, though that figure has not been confirmed by either company.

Investors have nevertheless treated the collaboration as a vote of confidence in Alphabet’s AI strategy. On Monday, Reuters reported that Alphabet’s market value rose above $4 trillion, helped in part by optimism around the Apple deal and stronger sentiment about Google’s Gemini roadmap.

Antitrust scrutiny likely to intensify

The partnership deepens an already extensive relationship between the companies. For years, Google has paid Apple tens of billions of dollars annually to be the default search engine in Safari on iPhones and other Apple devices, a practice that played a central role in the U.S. Department of Justice’s antitrust case, United States v. Google LLC.

In that case, the government argued that such default arrangements helped Google unlawfully maintain its search monopoly. A federal judge ruled in 2024 that Google had violated antitrust law, and potential remedies are still being debated.

Adding a broad AI infrastructure agreement on top of the longstanding search pact is likely to attract further attention from regulators in Washington and Brussels, who have warned for years about the concentration of power among a small group of technology platforms.

Antitrust experts say authorities may examine whether making Gemini the default AI engine for Siri and Apple Intelligence could entrench Google’s position in emerging AI markets in ways similar to its dominance in search. Questions are also likely to arise about whether rival models—such as OpenAI’s GPT-4 family or Anthropic’s Claude—will have any realistic way to gain comparable access to Apple’s operating systems at a system level.

How ChatGPT fits in

Apple had already announced an integration with OpenAI in 2024, allowing users to route certain complex Siri queries to ChatGPT with explicit consent. People familiar with Apple’s plans have said Gemini will now serve as the default backend for Siri, with ChatGPT offered as an optional alternative for specific tasks or advanced users.

What changes for users

For consumers, the most immediate impact is likely to be a Siri that behaves less like a limited voice command interface and more like the conversational assistants many users have grown accustomed to using in standalone apps and websites. Apple has said the new system will be able to handle more natural language, remember context across follow-up questions and carry out multi-step actions—such as rescheduling appointments and sending summary messages—that previously required a series of manual steps.

The shift will also mean more everyday interactions on Apple devices depend on large, power-hungry data centers. That could raise concerns about energy use and reliability in areas with poor connectivity, although Apple maintains that many tasks will still run locally on its custom chips.

Users wary of AI features will have some control. Apple has previously said that Apple Intelligence can be turned off in settings and that requests sent to external models, such as ChatGPT, require an additional prompt. The company has not yet fully detailed how choice and disclosure will work when Gemini-based models are involved, or whether users will be able to select among different AI providers at a system level.

The answers to those questions will help determine not only how much trust users place in the new Siri, but also how regulators view the influence that a small number of AI providers now wield over the software that mediates much of modern life. For now, Apple is betting that outsourcing the brain of its assistant to a longtime rival—while keeping the Apple name and privacy story at the front of the screen—is the surest way to make Siri relevant again in an era defined by artificial intelligence.