Google’s Apple deal is a major seal of approval for Gemini – and a sure sign it's beginning to pull ahead of OpenAI in the AI race

Apple is turning to Google to help underpin its Siri service and “Apple Intelligence” capabilities, marking the latest sign the tech giant is gaining momentum in the AI race.

The duo have signed a multi-year partnership that will see Google support a major upgrade to Siri, which is expected to launch later this year.

Moving ahead, Apple’s foundation models will also be based on Google’s in-house Gemini AI model range, the company confirmed.

“After careful evaluation, Apple determined that Google's Al technology provides the most capable foundation for Apple Foundation Models and is excited about the innovative new experiences it will unlock for Apple users,” the duo said in a joint statement confirming the deal.

“Apple Intelligence will continue to run on Apple devices and Private Cloud Compute, while maintaining Apple's industry-leading privacy standards.”

The move comes in the wake of several months of speculation over closer ties between the two tech giants. Google already pays Apple billions of dollars to remain the default search engine on iPhones, for example.

According to reports from Bloomberg in August last year, talks between the two over a potential deal for Gemini to power Siri were in the works. Separate reports from the publication noted the deal could see Apple pay Google upwards of £1 billion a year to use the model range.

The deal also represents somewhat of a snub for OpenAI. Apple previously integrated ChatGPT into macOS and forged close ties with the company on Apple Intelligence, for example.

Opting for a deal with Google suggests the tech giant views the Gemini range as a more reliable option than OpenAI's flagship GPT series.

Google is pulling ahead in the AI race

From Google’s perspective, the deal with Apple marks a huge seal of approval for its Gemini model range. Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said the partnership is a “major validation moment for Google” in a Monday research note, per reports from Fortune.

Alphabet, Google’s parent company, hit a major milestone in the wake of the deal, surpassing a $4 trillion valuation for the first time. The surge means Alphabet is just the fourth company to hit such a milestone alongside Nvidia, Microsoft, and Apple.

A key factor behind the breakneck growth at Google has been its growth strength in the generative AI race. The company has recorded consistent growth and progress on this front over the last three years following a rocky start.

When ChatGPT launched in November 2022, Google was caught off guard by the release, prompting a rapid shift in focus led by CEO Sundar Pichai.

As ITPro reported at the time, CEO Sundar Pichai issued a ‘code red’ alert which saw the company reallocate personnel and resources in a bid to keep pace with OpenAI and Microsoft.

Recent events suggest that Google has firmly caught up with key competitors in the AI space, particularly with regard to model capabilities.

In November, Google announced the launch of Gemini 3. The new model range outperformed OpenAI’s GPT-5 model across a range of key benchmarks. That launch precipitated a similar ‘code red’ scramble at OpenAI, with CEO Sam Altman pushing for the company to release GPT-5.2 in quick fashion.

A huge victory for Google

Rory Bathgate

I wouldn’t be surprised if somewhere in the Googleplex, Alphabet’s sprawling Mountain View HQ, there isn’t a proud executive today hanging up a plaque that reads “Google's Al technology provides the most capable foundation for Apple Foundation Models”.

This is a major victory for Alphabet, particularly Google DeepMind and Google Cloud, which have spent the past year turning Google’s cloud empire into the foundations for AI dominance.

At Google Cloud Next 2025, I wrote that the firm had demonstrated its clear strength in enterprise AI, backed by its colossal cloud infrastructure, home-grown TPUs for AI training and inference, and first-hand access to the world’s data.

No doubt Alphabet will shout about this deal from the rafters at Google Cloud Next 2026.

Beyond the short-term victory laps, there are also significant long-term reputational gains for both Google and Apple that can arise from this deal.

After first announcing Apple Intelligence at WWDC 2024, Apple has had a rocky 18 months of repeated delays. Users who bought the iPhone 16 Pro on the understanding that they’d soon have a revamped Siri are still waiting for the promised updates.

In the meantime, the 16 Pro has been eclipsed by an entire generation of devices.

Apple has long practiced a ‘slow but effective’ approach to both its hardware and software, in which it shows up years late to technological trends but executes them to such a high standard that its user base can’t complain. Apple’s approach to AI has been no different, as we’ve previously noted.

With the iPhone, we’ve seen it with ultrawide lenses, high refresh rate panels, and later this year could see Apple do it again with a foldable.

But Apple users have no qualms about adopting competing software in the meantime – in the form of Gemini, OpenAI’s ChatGPT, and Anthropic’s Claude. Clearly, Apple has decided that its customers have waited too long and Google is the most reliable partner for immediate results.

Logan Kilpatrick, product lead for Google AI Studio and Gemini API, took to X in July to announce that the firm had processed 980 trillion tokens in May, across its products and APIs. This number can only have risen since, with no notable outages across Google’s AI portfolio nor significant limitations imposed on free tier users.

Note also that this is a “multi-year” deal, with Google involved in crafting a range of new foundation models for Apple. Here the company can leverage its unparalleled access to data across Search, YouTube, Google Photos, and more, at a scale Apple can’t match.

The exact interdependencies between the Gemini family of models and Apple Intelligence is still to be determined, with Apple insisting the service will continue to operate both on device and using its Private Cloud Compute infrastructure.

In all likelihood, however, technical information will be kept at a minimum as Apple seeks to uphold a seamless AI experience for its iOS and macOS users.

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