Web Desk (MNN); Technology giants Apple and Google on Monday announced a multi-year partnership under which Apple’s upcoming artificial intelligence features, including its Siri voice assistant, will be powered by Google’s Gemini AI technology.
The collaboration marks a notable shift for Apple, a company long known for developing its core technologies internally. In a joint statement, Apple said it selected Google’s AI platform after a careful evaluation, concluding that Gemini offered the most capable foundation to support its future AI goals.
The partnership is being seen as a rare alliance between two long-standing rivals in the global smartphone market, where Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android operating systems dominate. Despite their competition, the two companies have maintained a profitable relationship for years, with Google paying Apple billions of dollars annually to remain the default search engine on Apple devices.
That existing arrangement has drawn regulatory scrutiny, particularly from the US Justice Department, which has argued in an antitrust case that the deal helps Google preserve its dominance in online search. A judge, however, has allowed the agreement to continue.
No financial details of the new AI partnership were disclosed. Dan Ives of Wedbush Securities described the collaboration as a major endorsement for Google and a crucial step for Apple as it works to realign its AI strategy heading into 2026 and beyond.
Reports suggest Apple also explored potential partnerships with other AI leaders, including OpenAI, Anthropic and Perplexity. The company has faced criticism for lagging behind competitors in rolling out AI capabilities, and last month announced the departure of its head of artificial intelligence.
Apple had delayed the launch of an upgraded Siri assistant last year and is now promising to release it later this year. Meanwhile, rivals such as Google, Microsoft and OpenAI continue to roll out increasingly advanced AI models amid intense competition.
Despite the collaboration, Apple stressed that its in-house AI system, Apple Intelligence, will continue to operate at the device level on iPhones and iPads, ensuring what it called industry-leading privacy protections.
