Apple to License Google’s 1.2T Gemini for About $1B a Year to Power Siri Upgrade

Post by : Bianca Suleiman

Apple is preparing to spend roughly $1 billion per year to license Google’s 1.2 trillion-parameter Gemini model, a deal that would become one of the largest inter-company AI agreements in recent memory.

People familiar with the negotiations say Apple and Google are closing in on terms that would let Apple use Gemini as the core engine for a substantial refresh of Siri. That revamped assistant is expected to arrive next spring with smarter, more contextual responses.

The arrangement marks a pragmatic shift for Apple, which has historically prioritized in-house solutions. After trialling several leading models — including OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Anthropic’s Claude — Apple settled on Gemini as a high-capacity interim platform while it continues building its own next-generation systems.

Under the proposed setup, Gemini would power Siri’s summarisation and planning abilities, helping the assistant follow context and execute complex, multi-step tasks. Apple says it will still run processing through its Private Cloud Compute infrastructure to keep user data separate from Google’s environment.

Internally known as “Glenwood,” the initiative is overseen by senior leaders including Mike Rockwell and Craig Federighi, who have led Apple’s hardware and software efforts. The updated Siri, called “Linwood” inside Apple, is slated to ship with iOS 26.4.

Sources say Apple does not intend to advertise the collaboration; unlike the prominent Safari search deal, Google’s role is expected to remain largely behind the scenes rather than a public-facing partnership.

The move reflects Apple’s assessment that it is trailing in raw AI capacity: the company’s current cloud model runs at about 150 billion parameters, far smaller than Gemini’s scale.

To narrow that gap, Apple’s internal AI team is reportedly developing a 1 trillion-parameter model that could be launched next year, but industry benchmarks still place Google’s Gemini 2.5 Pro at the top.

In China — where Google services are restricted — Apple plans to rely on local models and filtering technology built with Alibaba, and it is in discussions with Baidu to tailor upcoming “Apple Intelligence” features for the Chinese market.

As competition among major tech firms intensifies, this quiet collaboration between Apple and Google represents a notable strategic alignment and a significant step toward transforming Siri from a basic voice assistant into a more capable AI companion.