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Apple is leaning on Google to advance its AI strategy, deepening the companies’ long-standing partnership and positioning Alphabet with a potential advantage in the intensifying race to shape the future of generative AI – where OpenAI remains the key rival. The move follows reports from last autumn that an agreement was close, with Apple reportedly set to pay around $1 billion for access to Google’s AI technology.
Google’s Gemini models are set to underpin upcoming Apple Intelligence capabilities, including a long-anticipated revamp of Siri. Apple introduced its Apple Intelligence generative AI suite in 2024, alongside Private Cloud Compute, a system designed to handle more advanced AI tasks with a strong emphasis on user privacy.
Apple, at the same time, also announced a long-awaited partnership with OpenAI that would bring ChatGPT into select experiences across iOS. How Apple’s new agreement with Google may affect that integration remains unclear.
Although Apple Intelligence has emerged as a strategic priority, Apple has pursued AI development more cautiously than many of its tech peers. The company has also undergone leadership changes, appointing former Google and Microsoft executive Amar Subramanya as vice president of AI in December. Seen in that light, the latest move suggests Apple may be easing back from its earlier push to build all of its AI capabilities entirely in-house.
Google has noted a string of recent AI wins, building on its Apple partnership and expanding into AI-powered commerce through new shopping deals with Target and Walmart. Despite competing in areas like smartphones, Apple and Google remain deeply intertwined through a long-running search partnership worth an estimated $20 billion annually, a revenue-sharing arrangement upheld even as a landmark antitrust ruling labeled Google an illegal monopoly.
The Apple–Google agreement has already sparked backlash, with Elon Musk, owner of Tesla and X, criticising the move as “an unreasonable concentration of power.” Musk, whose own generative AI venture xAI develops the Grok assistant, has positioned himself as a vocal opponent of Big Tech’s growing AI alliances.
