Apple has forged a landmark partnership with Google to integrate Gemini artificial intelligence technology into its products, marking a dramatic shift in the competitive AI landscape and positioning the iPhone maker to deliver a significantly enhanced Siri assistant later this year. The multi-year collaboration, reportedly worth billions of dollars, will see Google's advanced Gemini models and cloud technology power the next generation of Apple Foundation Models that underpin Apple Intelligence features.
The announcement sent Google's stock soaring, pushing Alphabet's market capitalization to four trillion dollars for the first time in intraday trading, making it the fourth publicly traded company to reach that milestone after Nvidia, Microsoft, and Apple. Bloomberg reported that Apple plans to pay approximately one billion dollars annually to utilize Google's AI technology, with the deal structured as a cloud computing contract that could result in Apple paying several billion dollars to Google over the partnership's duration.
The enhanced Siri powered by Gemini is expected to debut with iOS 26.4 in March or April, introducing capabilities that represent the most significant upgrade to Apple's virtual assistant since its launch. The new features will include dramatically improved understanding of personal context, on-screen awareness that allows Siri to comprehend what users are viewing, and deeper integration with individual applications for more sophisticated per-app controls.
Apple emphasized that despite the Google partnership, Apple Intelligence will continue to operate on Apple devices and through its Private Cloud Compute infrastructure while maintaining what the company describes as industry-leading privacy standards. The collaboration is non-exclusive, meaning Apple may continue utilizing OpenAI's models for certain Apple Intelligence features, though reports indicate OpenAI made a conscious decision to refrain from pursuing a broader partnership with Apple.
The deal represents a significant strategic pivot for Apple, which has historically developed its technologies in-house but has faced criticism that Siri lagged behind competitors powered by more advanced language models. Industry analysts view the partnership as an acknowledgment that even Apple, with its vast resources, cannot match the specialized AI capabilities that Google has developed through years of investment in machine learning research and infrastructure.
The partnership arrives amid ongoing antitrust scrutiny of the relationship between the two tech giants. Google was found to hold an illegal monopoly in online search in 2024, partly through payments to Apple to be its default search engine. However, Apple and Google emphasized this new AI collaboration is separate from their search arrangement and does not involve Search or Gemini app distribution. The non-exclusive nature of the deal also aims to address potential regulatory concerns about market concentration in the rapidly evolving AI industry.
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