Siri's long-awaited upgrade lands with a surprising partner
On January 12, 2026, Apple confirmed a multi‑year collaboration with Google to use Google’s Gemini models and cloud technology as the foundation for the next generation of Apple Foundation Models, and to help power a substantially revamped Siri later in 2026. The two companies said Apple chose Gemini after a careful evaluation, calling it "the most capable foundation" for future Apple Intelligence features.
What the deal actually says — and what it keeps private
The official statement was short on commercial terms: neither company disclosed the financial deal publicly. Independent reporting and market chatter earlier this winter had suggested Apple might pay on the order of roughly $1 billion per year for broad access to a customized Gemini stack, though those figures remain unconfirmed in the companies' joint release. Apple and Google said the agreement is multi‑year and will support the next generation of Apple Foundation Models; they did not describe the arrangement as exclusive.
Apple emphasised that the integration will respect its long‑standing privacy commitments. The companies said Apple Intelligence will continue to run on Apple devices and on Apple’s Private Cloud Compute infrastructure — a model that, Apple argues, prevents user data from being exposed to third parties. In practice, Apple will host and orchestrate access to Gemini‑based models within its own controlled environment rather than routing user data into Google’s public cloud. Those technical assurances are central to Apple’s public messaging about the partnership.
Why Apple turned to an outside model
For years, Apple has emphasised vertical integration: building hardware, chips and software within the company. But Apple’s public AI initiatives have lagged the market’s breakout moments from competitors. Siri in particular has been seen as functionally behind rivals’ assistants, and Apple’s initial Apple Intelligence rollout in 2024 produced useful but comparatively restrained features. The new agreement reflects a pragmatic choice: while Apple continues to develop its own large models, it will rely on Google’s engineering at the scale Gemini offers to accelerate improvements for users.
What users can expect in the near term
Apple and other reporting outlets point to a substantial Siri overhaul arriving later in 2026. The upgraded assistant is expected to be more context aware across apps, better at multi‑step planning, and able to handle more complex, mixed‑initiative tasks — capacities that Google’s large models are designed to support. One set of reports places the public launch for those features with iOS 26.4 in the spring of 2026, though Apple did not publish a precise date in the joint announcement.
How Apple intends to keep control of data and models
Apple’s pitch is that the new Gemini‑backed features will still follow its privacy model: inference and personalisation will happen on a mix of the user’s device and Apple’s Private Cloud Compute (PCC) servers. According to the companies, that setup will prevent Gemini — as hosted for Apple — from learning across user accounts in a manner that would transfer raw user content back to Google’s regular product ecosystem. The technical and legal details of how data is isolated, how long transient states are retained, and whether Apple will feed telemetry back into model training were not enumerated in the release. Privacy‑sensitive observers and regulators are likely to watch those operational details closely.
Wider market and regulatory consequences
The partnership hands Google a beachhead inside the world’s largest installed base of mobile devices: Apple’s ecosystem spans well over two billion active devices. That reach is one reason investors reacted strongly to the news; market commentary noted a meaningful boost to Alphabet’s valuation after the announcement, reflecting confidence in Gemini’s commercial growth paths. For Google, the deal binds a dominant consumer AI brand to its model portfolio; for Apple, it is a fast way to close capability gaps without abandoning long‑term ambitions to run home‑grown foundation models.
Observers are already asking whether the arrangement will draw regulatory scrutiny. Apple and Google have long had a complex commercial relationship — search deals, App Store interactions and platform competition have all attracted regulators’ attention. A new multi‑year AI arrangement that channels advanced models into Apple’s products will likely be analysed not just for data‑protection issues but for impacts on competition between AI providers and device makers.
Product strategy: stopgap, partnership, or permanent shift?
Industry analysts frame the pact in a few different ways. One view is that Apple has accepted a pragmatic stopgap: it will use an external model while it continues to assemble the people, data and infrastructure required to train and operate very large proprietary models. Another sees a deeper strategic alignment in which Apple selectively outsources foundational compute and model engineering while keeping the user experience, data isolation, and monetisation under its control. The companies said the deal will power "future Apple Intelligence features," a phrase that leaves room for Apple to blend in its own models and third‑party partners over time.
Developer and platform consequences
Beyond Siri, the partnership will affect how Apple approaches developer tools and APIs. Apple has said that the Apple Foundation Models will serve as a base for app developers; using Gemini as that base could change the performance characteristics and capabilities available to third‑party apps inside Apple’s ecosystem. Apple's developer community will want clarity about latency, quotas, pricing and which operations are handled on device versus in the cloud — factors that shape app design and business models. Details about developer access were not provided in the announcement.
What remains unanswered
Crucial technical questions remain open. How much of Gemini’s parameter footprint will Apple run on its PCC servers? Will Apple use distilled or customised versions of Gemini for edge or on‑device scenarios? How will Apple balance the benefits of Gemini’s scale against the carbon and cost implications of serving trillions of parameter inferences across billions of devices? The joint statement addresses high‑level architecture and intentions but leaves these operational specifics to future disclosures.
For customers, the short‑term effect is likely to be noticeable: a smarter Siri, tighter cross‑app capabilities and more sophisticated text, image and notification summarisation. For the industry, the deal is a milestone in which two of the world’s largest technology companies leaned into collaboration to accelerate product‑level AI while attempting to preserve an identity built around privacy and device integration. Whether that balancing act satisfies regulators, developers and privacy advocates will be a defining part of the story in the months ahead.
Sources
- Apple and Google joint statement (press release)
- Google Gemini technical documentation and blog materials
- Apple Private Cloud Compute (PCC) technical materials
