Word on the street is that Apple is in talks with Google to give Siri a much-needed boost. The plan, apparently, is for Apple to licence Google’s Gemini AI models to power a new and improved version of the virtual assistant.
According to Bloomberg, Apple is putting about USD1 billion (~RM4.18 billion) on the table for a bespoke Gemini model. This custom build would be designed to run on Apple’s own private cloud servers, keeping things firmly within the Apple ecosystem while giving Siri a serious brain upgrade.
If the whispers are to be believed, we won’t see this smarter Siri until the iOS 26.4 update, which is currently pencilled in for a spring 2026 release – so around March to May of that year.
The chatter is that Apple didn’t just go with Google straight away. They apparently ran a proper bake-off, testing Gemini against other models like Anthropic’s Claude. The story goes that while Claude might have been technically superior in some aspects, the deal with Google made more financial sense.
Google already pays Apple a small fortune to be the default search engine on its devices, it’s thought that this new arrangement could simply see Google adjusting those existing payments. It’s a tidy bit of business that benefits both sides.