TECHNOLOGY

Apple and Google Partner: Gemini AI Powers Siri

Apple and Google’s groundbreaking partnership integrates Google’s Gemini AI into Siri, impacting 1.5 billion iPhones. Learn how this deal reshapes the future of mobile AI and Google’s position in the tech industry.

BY CASEY NOLAN

JANUARY 14, 2026

Google’s partnership with Apple elevated its market cap to over $4 trillion

Apple and Google have both claimed that the next version of Siri and other generative AI will use Gemini's models. The news was initially reported by CNBC. Apple and Google later made a big announcement jointly. Part of it said, "Apple picked Google's AI technology as the best base for Apple Foundation Models." Apple Intelligence will keep working on Apple products and Private Cloud Compute. They will still meet Apple's privacy standards, which are the best in the business.

In June, it was reported that Apple was considering about working with Anthropic and OpenAI on Siri. Thanks to Apple Intelligence, Siri can now use ChatGPT to answer some questions. Two months later, Google was a major competitor. Another story said that Apple would make the new Siri using a modified version of Gemini. Google would make about $1 billion a year from this. There were still no formal numbers about the deal that were made public. Google's AI will improve a number of Apple's services, such as Siri, Apple's virtual assistant, which will be more personalized for each user. The tech companies have announced they will work together for a few years.

Apple, the firm that develops the iPhone, will incorporate some of the basic technologies from Google's Gemini AI models. The two businesses claimed in a joint statement that the alliance would give Apple users "new and exciting experiences." Experts say this shows that Apple's careful approach to building and using its own AI technologies has left it reliant on other companies.

Why This News Is Important:

The deal between Apple and Google represents a huge step forward in the fight for AI. Siri can work on more than 1.5 billion iPhones thanks to Google's Gemini models. This gives Google additional power in AI and elevates its market cap to over $4 trillion. This purchase is wonderful for Apple because it makes Siri better, but it also illustrates how careful Apple is with AI. Apple receives the latest tech from Google and keeps people's information protected.

Google’s partnership with Apple elevated its market cap to over $4 trillion second image

Apple picks Google's Gemini, making OpenAI less significant

On Monday, Apple and Google shocked the tech world by saying they will work together on AI. This made Google's shares worth more than $4 trillion. The two tech titans are working together to bring Google's AI technology to Apple's mobile software. This includes a better version of the Siri digital assistant. This has a huge impact on the race to be the best at AI and control the platform that will shape the future era of computing. A lot of people still want to know more about the relationship, such how long it will last and how much it will cost. But some things are already evident.

This is why the purchase is great for Google, not so great for Apple, and definitely bad for OpenAI. When OpenAI published ChatGPT in November 2022, many people inside the company weren't sure how well Google will fare in the market during the next two years. The huge search engine seems to have had problems building models that could quickly compete with OpenAI's ChatGPT and Anthropic's Claude. Bard, Google's chatbot, and the Gemini models that came after it both had a lot of problems. For example, they gave out false information, proposed using glue as a pizza topping, and showed images of Black Nazis who were no longer alive.

The Gemini 3 is one of Google's newest and best phones. People and businesses are beginning to notice them. A number of people have also signed up for the company's Google Cloud platform. The main reason for this is because it features special AI processors called tensor processing units (TPUs) that can run AI models quicker and cheaper than Nvidia's graphics processing units (GPUs). Apple's revelation on Monday that Google's AI technology "provides the most capable foundation for Apple Foundation Models" was the last piece of evidence that Gemini was right. This was very crucial because OpenAI has been Apple's major tech partner for its "Apple Intelligence" products up to this point.

Google AI Can Use 1.5 billion iPhones Because of the Apple Deal

Bank of America analysts said that this transaction makes Gemini a stronger contender because it is a key major language model for mobile devices. They also added that this will probably make investors feel better about Google's ambitions to make money and share search results in the long run. Hamza Mudassir, who teaches strategy and policy at the Judge Business School at the University of Cambridge and owns a company that makes AI agents, said that Apple's decision is presumably based on more than just Gemini's technical skills. Apple doesn't allow its partners use its customer data to teach their models.

Mudassir noted that Apple might have picked Google's control over its ecosystem, such having its own cloud, because it can protect intellectual property and keep data private in ways that OpenAI or Anthropic might not be able to. The transaction will likely help Google make money too. Bloomberg has stated before that Apple paid Google about $1 billion a year to use its technology, but the actual amount of money was not made public. The best thing about the deal for Google might be that it allows them use Apple's huge distribution network, which has more than 1.5 billion iPhone users around the world. Gemini works with the newest version of Siri, so Google could be able to get some of the money that people make when they use a Gemini-enabled Siri to search for and buy products. In the end, this might lead to an agreement where the Gemini chatbot software comes with iPhones.