Siri plays a prominent role in the iPhone experience, helping users complete tasks with the aid of voice commands. Recent Apple Intelligence integration was designed to make it even better, but the secret to a planned boost in the AI assistant’s abilities may just come from Google.
Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman has indicated (via 9to5Mac) that the upcoming Siri experience will be backed by Google Gemini, with Apple paying the search giant to create a custom model that will run on Apple’s Private Cloud Compute servers.
Apple was in talks with Google and Amazon since last year for custom model building
Last year, we heard that Apple was in talks with Google and Amazon about integrating their AI products into Siri. Now it looks like the Cupertino tech giant has opted for Google’s Gemini over Amazon-backed Anthropic. The preexisting Google Search integration in Safari could be one of the reasons Apple chose the Gemini-based model over Anthropic for Siri, noted Gurman.
It is encouraging to see things finally moving forward for both companies. Even though Google is creating a custom model of Gemini based on Apple servers, Gurman pointed out that neither company is likely to officially promote the partnership.
It also means we are less likely to see Siri showcasing Google services and Gemini features as opposed to what we are accustomed to with Galaxy AI on Samsung phones.
Gurman speculated that the Gemini-backed new Siri might show up in the iOS 26.4 firmware release for iPhones, likely to happen in the first or second quarter of next year.
Apple seems to have been working on this incorporation for quite some time. A report from Mark Gurman earlier this year had indicated that Apple is rebuilding Siri, involving three key components: “a planner, the search systems for the web and devices, and a summarizer.”
As 9to5Mac points out, the search system from the component would involve a custom Gemini model to gather information from the web. The planner and summarizer are also likely to involve Gemini models, which will be running on Apple servers.
However, since it is not a core Google Gemini integration as seen on other Android phones, the chances of data sharing are likely to be minimal, keeping the users’ privacy intact.
All in all, the latest Gemini integration could potentially improve Siri’s ability to answer complex queries and general knowledge questions more effectively than it currently does for iPhone users.
