In a rare but pragmatic move that redefines the balance of power in Silicon Valley, Apple has finalised a billion-dollar-a-year deal with Google. The decision ends months of speculation about the future of Siri and confirms that Gemini models will become the fundamental engine driving the assistant in the iPhone ecosystem. For Apple, it’s a way to quickly catch up in the AI race without the gargantuan cost of building its own underlying infrastructure from scratch.
A key element of the agreement is a move away from a ‘one size fits all’ model. Rather than relying on a single giant algorithm, Apple will implement a multi-model strategy, taking advantage of the flexibility of the upcoming Gemini 3 series. The foundation is to be a modified, high-performance model with 1.2 billion parameters, designed for fast query processing. This approach allows Apple to precisely match computing power to the complexity of the task, drastically reducing the operational costs and infrastructure needed to handle billions of queries per day. Siri will now seamlessly switch between variants – from a lightweight Flash model to advanced Pro versions – depending on whether the user is setting a timer or needs help with multi-step trip planning.
The technical aspect of the collaboration reveals the hybrid nature of Apple’s new architecture. Although heavier workloads will be processed in Google Cloud, the Cupertino-based company has set tough privacy conditions. Apple Intelligence will continue to prioritise local processing and its own Private Cloud Compute system for sensitive data, ensuring that user information is deleted immediately after processing and that Google has no permanent access to it.
Importantly, the new agreement does not exclude existing players. The partnership with OpenAI around ChatGPT integration remains in place, suggesting that Apple is building an agnostic model in which it is the user or context that decides the choice of AI tool. The reaction of the markets was immediate and euphoric. News of the deal pushed Alphabet’s market capitalisation above the historic $4 trillion threshold, joining Google’s owner in the elite club of tech giants with an unprecedented valuation. For Google, this is not only a cash injection, but more importantly, the ultimate confirmation of the dominance of their technology in the mobile world.
