When in doubt, use the best assets available to you (even if those assets haven’t been developed in-house and belong to your competitor/partner).
According to Bloomberg, Apple will be developing a smarter, more capable version of Siri that will be powered by Google Gemini. Apple is expected to pay Google approximately $1 billion per year for a 1.2 trillion parameter artificial intelligence model that was developed by Google.
The parameters themselves function as a model for how well a model understands and responds to queries. The parameters generally allow the AI to become more capable, although training and architecture also function as factors. Bloomberg has stated that Google’s model “dwarfs” the parameter level of Apple’s current AI models.
At present, the cloud-based version of Apple Intelligence uses 150 billion parameters, although there are no specific metrics detailing how the other models Apple is developing measure up.
Apple will use Gemini for functions related to summarizing and multi-step task planning and execution, but Apple models will also be used for some Siri features. The AI model that Google is developing for Apple will run on Apple’s Private Cloud Compute servers, so Google will not have access to Apple data.
Gemini’s architecture uses a Mixture-of-Experts architecture, offering it over a trillion total parameters. While only a fraction of these parameters are activated for each query, the architecture allows for a large total compute capacity without racking up significant processing costs.
Apple is said to have weighed using its own AI models for the LLM version of Siri, and also tested options that included OpenAI and Anthropic, but decided to opt for Gemini after deciding Anthropic’s fees were too pricey. Apple currently has a partnership with Google for search results, with Google paying Apple around $20 billion per year to be the default search engine option on Apple devices.
While Apple may rely on Google AI for the time being, the company apparently plans to keep developing its own AI models and will. transition to an in-house solution when its LLMs are capable enough. Apple is already working on a 1 trillion parameter cloud-based model that could be ready as soon as 2026, but seems unlikely to publicize its arrangement with Google while it develops in-house models.
Apple was rumored to debut an updated version of Siri in iOS 18, but the project required a significant overhaul of Siri and significantly delayed the rollout. The improved version of Apple Intelligence Siri is expected to be introduced in an iOS 26.4 update that’s coming in spring 2026.
Siri will be able to answer more complex queries and complete more complicated tasks in and between apps. It will be closer in function to Claude and ChatGPT, though Apple is not planning a dedicated chatbot app.
Stay tuned for additional details as they become available.