It’s an unlikely union between two tech giants. Apple is reportedly going to pay Google about $1 billion a year to fuel a major upgrade of Siri, its lagging voice assistant, in the race for AI supremacy.
The deal revolves around Google’s Gemini AI model, an advanced system sporting 1.2 trillion parameters that will become the backbone for the next generation of Siri. Apple tested a variety of options over the past few months, including OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Anthropic’s Claude, before settling on Google’s technology earlier this year.
That’s a big upgrade: Apple currently uses a 150-billion parameter model for its cloud-based AI features. Jumping up to 1.2 trillion parameters is an enormous leap in computing power and capability. The parameters essentially measure how complex and nuanced an AI system can be, which touches everything from understanding context to handling complex requests.
The new Siri is set to arrive this coming spring with iOS 26.4, but that’s still several months away, and the company’s plans could change. The project, internally, is referred to as Linwood, while the larger effort at rebuilding Siri with third-party tech has been dubbed Glenwood.
Apple Taps Google Gemini to Revitalize Siri’s AI Capabilities
At the forefront are two of Apple’s most important executives: Mike Rockwell, creator of the Vision Pro headset, and Craig Federighi, the company’s software engineering chief. The challenge for them is to make Siri competitive again after AI assistants have dramatically improved.
Under the partnership, Google’s Gemini will handle certain key pieces of functionality in Siri. The AI will power the summarizer and planner components—in other words, the bits that let Siri work out what you’re asking, synthesize multiple pieces of information, and determine how to complete multi-part requests. Other Siri features will continue running on Apple’s own models.
Privacy remains paramount in the setup. The Gemini model will run on Apple’s Private Cloud Compute servers, keeping the user data completely segregated from Google’s infrastructure. Apple has already dedicated specific AI server hardware to support this mechanism.
Don’t expect Apple to trumpet this Google collaboration in its marketing materials, either. The company is going to treat Google like a behind-the-scenes technology supplier, not a visible partner. This is different from the Apple-Google relationship that exists today, in which Google pays to be the default search engine in Safari, a fact that’s very public.
The deal is also separate from the prior discussions to include Gemini directly in Siri as a chatbot feature, which almost happened in 2024 and early this year but broke down. Apple chief executive Tim Cook has suggested that Siri may eventually provide more than the ChatGPT integration currently available.
Apple’s Push for In-House AI Amid Talent Exodus and China Challenges
Despite this major investment in Google’s technology, Apple considers Gemini a stopgap. The company has hemorrhaged AI talent, including the head of its models team. Yet management still is keen to develop homegrown AI capabilities.
Apple’s models team is working on its own 1 trillion parameter cloud-based model, which it hopes to have ready for consumer use as early as next year. Executives think they can match the quality of Google’s custom Gemini offering and replace it with an in-house alternative over time.
Catching up won’t be easy, though: Google’s Gemini 2.5 Pro currently tops most leaderboards of large language models, and the company is continuing to push the technology forward.
Apple also has unique challenges in China, where Google services have been banned for many years. The Chinese version of the new Siri will not use Gemini at all. Instead, it will rely on Apple’s models combined with a content filter developed by the Alibaba Group. The company has also looked at partnerships with Baidu for its AI offerings in the country.
It’s an acknowledgment that Apple, after years of rapid growth, has fallen behind in one of the most promising areas of tech: artificial intelligence. Whether this billion-dollar bet pays off remains to be seen when the new Siri arrives next year.
