Google has achieved a significant strategic victory, embedding its 1.2 trillion parameter Gemini AI deep within its rival’s ecosystem. A $1 billion-per-year deal will make Gemini the “behind-the-scenes” engine for Apple’s new “Linwood” Siri, set for a spring release.
This partnership is a “temporary fix” for Apple, whose “Glenwood” project is a race to make Siri competitive. Apple’s internal models, at 150 billion parameters, are dwarfed by Google’s “ultrapowerful” AI, which won a “bake-off” against OpenAI and Anthropic.
The new Siri will be a hybrid. Google’s AI will handle the most complex “planner” and “summariser” functions, allowing the assistant to understand and execute multi-step tasks for the first time. Apple’s technology will handle the rest.
This deal is a huge win for Google’s “AI supplier” ambitions, with companies like Snap also building on its Vertex AI platform. For Apple, it’s a reluctant admission of its AI lag, overseen by executives Craig Federighi and Mike Rockwell.
To protect its brand, Apple has made privacy non-negotiable. Gemini will run on Apple’s Private Cloud Compute servers in a “walled-off” architecture. Google gets $1 billion, but critically, it gets no access to Apple user data.
