In a move that reshapes the competitive landscape of Silicon Valley, Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) and Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) have entered into a multi-year partnership to base the next generation of Apple’s artificial intelligence on Google’s Gemini models.
The deal, announced Monday, marks a definitive victory for Google’s AI division after its Gemini 3 model captured the market's attention with superior benchmarks in reasoning and multimodal capabilities.
Under the agreement, Google’s latest models will serve as the foundation for the upcoming "Apple Intelligence" suite.
Most notably, the partnership will anchor a completely reimagined Siri, set for a phased rollout starting later this year.
Apple confirmed that after a rigorous "careful evaluation" of several competitors—reportedly including OpenAI and Anthropic—it determined that Gemini provides the most robust and capable foundation for its future "Apple Foundation Models."
The integration will specifically focus on enhancing Siri’s complex reasoning, summarization, and planning features.
While Apple will continue to use its own homegrown, smaller on-device models for personal context and simple tasks, the "heavy lifting" for web-based queries and cross-app coordination will be offloaded to a custom version of Gemini.
To maintain Apple’s strict privacy standards, the Gemini-based models will run on Private Cloud Compute (PCC)—Apple’s custom-built server infrastructure.
This architecture ensures that user data remains isolated and is never absorbed into Google’s broader data-training systems.
The announcement propelled Alphabet’s market capitalization to a historic $4 trillion milestone, as investors cheered the validation of its AI roadmap.
While official terms were not disclosed, analysts estimate Apple may pay Google upwards of $1 billion annually for access to its 1.2 trillion parameter model.
This partnership follows a similar deal between Google and Samsung, which aims to power 800 million mobile devices with Gemini by the end of 2026.
The collaboration represents a pragmatic pivot for Apple, which has faced criticism for falling behind in the generative AI race.
By leaning on Google’s advanced technology as a temporary but high-powered foundation, Apple can deliver the sophisticated "agentic" AI features users expect while continuing to develop its own 1-trillion-parameter cloud model in the background.
The refreshed Siri, codenamed "Linwood," is expected to make its public debut with the release of iOS 26.4 in the spring of 2026, offering deeper app controls and a new "World Knowledge Answers" search tool.