Apple has officially chosen Google Gemini for the new Siri (as reported by CNBC)
This isn't exactly breaking news. Bloomberg reported on it back in November. But many in the industry (myself included) were betting until the last moment that Tim Cook would make a bold move and acquire Anthropic or Perplexity to own the entire tech stack. But pragmatism won — they chose their old frenemy.
How it will work:
— Gemini handles heavy computations and complex queries in the cloud.
— Apple's base models continue running locally on devices (on-device privacy and all that).
— Google boosts Apple's own models with its technology.
Insiders previously said Apple would pay Google about $1B per year. But considering the astronomical sums Google itself sends to Cupertino for default search in Safari, it's likely some complex barter arrangement.
The most interesting question now — Sam Altman's reaction. Apple Intelligence already routes queries through ChatGPT, and how these two giants (Gemini and GPT) will share users within a single Siri is unclear (though Apple insists no previous agreements will change). In any case, OpenAI's monopoly on iPhones seems to be coming to an end. And trust in Google's Gemini keeps growing. Google's market cap crossed $4 trillion on this news.
*The post image, by the way, was generated by Nano Banana Pro in about 3 seconds (without even a prompt — I just fed it the post text and that was it)*