Apple selects Google Gemini to power next-generation Siri

Apple and Google announced a multi-year, non-exclusive partnership under which Google’s Gemini models would underpin a rebuilt Siri and Apple’s broader Apple Intelligence features. Apple confirmed the arrangement jointly with Google, saying in a statement that “after careful evaluation, we determined that Google’s technology provides the most capable foundation for Apple Foundation Models.”

The deal followed a period in which Apple tested alternatives from OpenAI and Anthropic before selecting Google, and it marked a retreat from Apple’s earlier insistence on building its own foundation models in-house. Reporting attributed to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman put the arrangement at roughly $1 billion a year, though neither company confirmed pricing publicly. Apple said processing would continue to run on-device or through its Private Cloud Compute infrastructure, with Google given no access to user data, in an effort to preserve the privacy positioning Apple had built its AI strategy around.

A revamped, “more personalised” Siri was expected to ship with iOS 26.4 in spring 2026, following earlier delays to Apple’s AI-powered Siri features that had already stretched over more than a year. The move came as Google faced ongoing antitrust litigation over its dominance in search and other markets, including disputes concerning payments to Apple for default search placement — making the Gemini-Siri deal a second major commercial arrangement between the two companies under regulatory scrutiny.

The deal was read in the industry as a significant platform win for Google, extending Gemini’s reach onto hundreds of millions of iPhones without Apple abandoning its privacy branding, and as an acknowledgement by Apple that its own models had fallen behind rivals on the capabilities needed for a competitive assistant.