Apple mulls using Google’s Gemini to support its updated Siri voice assistant

iPhone maker Apple is reportedly in talks to utilize Google’s Gemini AI to upgrade the Siri voice assistant, according to people familiar with the matter who were cited by Bloomberg News.

According to the report, Apple recently approached Google to build a custom AI model to power its refurbished Siri next year. This comes as the iPhone maker has delayed release of the revamped Siri voice assistant.

Alphabet shares rise on Apple’s Siri collaboration

In response to the news, Google’s parent company Alphabet’s shares went up 3.7% while Apple’s stock rose by 1.6%, both tech giants extending gains in afternoon trading.

According to the reports, Apple is yet to decide if it should stick to its in-house Siri models or switch to an external partner. The company has not yet chosen that external partner. The search engine giant said that it did not have a comment over the report while Apple also remained muted about the matter.

Apple is trying to play catch up with peers in the AI race. The report further shows that Apple has lagged smartphone makers like Google and Samsung in deploying generative AI features which have rapidly integrated advanced assistants and advanced models across products.

This comes after delays to a long promised overhaul of the Siri voice assistant designed to execute tasks using personal context and enable full voice-based control.

Reports indicate that the upgrade, which was initially slated for this last spring was pushed back by a year as a result of engineering setbacks. As a result of the failure, Apple sidelined AI chief John Giannandrea from Siri development. The project, according to Seeking Alpha, is now being handled by software head Craig Federighi and Vision Pro headset creator Mike Rockwell. These are considering using external help as a possible way forwards.

The update was reportedly developed around technology developed by the Apple Foundation Models team, the same group that also developed the on-device large language model that supports the Apple Intelligence features like summarizing text and creating custom emoji.

Apple is also said to be simultaneously developing two versions of Siri. One of the model is known as Linwood, that is powered by its models and another one known as Glenwood, which runs on outside technology.

Management favored Anthropic as their preferred option for collaboration but the startup set financial terms that forced Apple to broaden its search and bring others to the table, while it has also not ruled out sticking to its own models.

According to Seeking Alpha, these discussions are separate from other previous agreements to integrate chatbots into Apple Intelligence. In 2024, the company added ChatGPT as a Siri fallback for general knowledge questions.

Apple and Google have both publicly revealed plans for a similar Gemini integration.

Apple lags behind peers in AI race

According to Reuters, Siri has historically lagged behind and less capable than Alexa and Google Assistant at handling complex, multi-step requests and integrating with third party apps.

Apple also explored potential partnerships with Anthropic and OpenAI earlier this year, considering whether Claude of ChatGPT could power a revamped Siri, as per earlier reports.

As for the Siri partnerships, third-party models would run on Apple’s Private Cloud Compute servers that use Mac chips for remote AI processing, which means the external Siri models would not run on devices themselves, according to reports.

CEO Tim Cook declined to comment on the use of third-party models during the company’s quarterly earnings call, saying that any discussions would reveal the tech firm’s plans.

The iPhone maker has already begun enlisting partners for some consumer features and its internal operations. The company is offering ChatGPT option for generating images in the iOS 26 operating system. It also ended a publicly announced project to develop its own generative AI-based coding system, and the company is reportedly using ChatGPT and Claude.

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