Google’s AI Coup: Gemini to Power iPhone’s Siri in $1B Agreement

Google has achieved a major strategic coup, finalizing a $1 billion-a-year deal to have its Gemini AI model power the core of Apple’s next-generation Siri. This partnership places Google’s “ultrapowerful” 1.2 trillion parameter model at the heart of the iPhone, its chief competitor’s ecosystem. Apple is banking on this technology to serve as an “interim solution” to overhaul its long-criticized voice assistant, with new features planned for a spring release.
This decision comes after Apple’s “Glenwood” project, led by executives Mike Rockwell and Craig Federighi, conducted a thorough review of third-party AI, including OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Anthropic’s Claude. Google’s Gemini was selected as the most robust option to power the new “Linwood” version of Siri, which will be part of the iOS 26.4 update. This move is a clear admission from Apple that its in-house AI has fallen significantly behind.
The 1.2 trillion parameter Google model will be responsible for Siri’s most demanding tasks, the “summariser” and “planner” functions. This is a massive leap from Apple’s 150-billion parameter cloud AI and will allow Siri to synthesize information and execute complex, multi-step requests. Simpler tasks will still be handled by Apple’s proprietary models in a hybrid architecture.
A key condition of the deal, insisted upon by Apple, is that the Gemini model will run on Apple’s Private Cloud Compute servers. This “walled-off” system ensures that Google will have no access to Apple user data, a critical measure to protect Apple’s privacy-centric brand. Apple has already allocated the server hardware needed to host this powerful model.
While this is a significant win for Google’s AI division, its role will be that of a “behind-the-scenes” supplier, with no public promotion from Apple. This is a temporary arrangement, as Apple’s management is still pushing its teams to develop a 1 trillion parameter in-house model to replace Gemini. However, catching Google’s top-performing and rapidly evolving AI will be a formidable challenge for Apple.