During an antitrust trial in Washington on Wednesday, Google’s CEO, Sundar Pichai, indicated that the company is working to have Gemini AI on iPhones. The company intends to have a formal agreement with Apple by the middle of this year. The eventual rollout is anticipated to be at the end of 2025.
Today’s update followed questions from Department of Justice lawyer Veronica Onyema, to which Pichai confirmed these plans. Pichai also stated he had met with Apple CEO Tim Cook to discuss AI development, including Google’s Gemini app distribution.
Pichai stated that the integration will have Google’s Gemini AI as part of Apple Intelligence, Apple’s suite of AI features. This integration would likely enable Siri to use Gemini for more complex inquiries, similar to how Apple’s integration with OpenAI’s ChatGPT works.
Integrating Gemini AI is anticipated to improve Apple Intelligence’s performance across different applications. For example, writing tools using large language models could offer better proofreading, summarisation, and rewriting features.
Read: Google’s $75 Billion AI Investment Pays Off with Strong Growth in First Quarter.
This discussion between the two tech giants reflects Apple’s strategy, highlighted by Senior Vice President of Software Engineering at Apple, Craig Federighi, to partner with multiple AI providers and integrate various AI models, including Google’s Gemini.
“We want to enable users ultimately to choose the models they want, maybe Google Gemini in the future,” Federighi said at the WWDC24.
It also shows that plans, first reported last year in March, are well underway. This potential deal would represent an expansion of the financial relationship between Apple and Google, as Google already pays Apple significant annual fees to be the default search engine on its devices.
