Google Gemini May Soon Come to Apple Intelligence
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When Apple unveiled Apple Intelligence at last year’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), it also announced a groundbreaking partnership with OpenAI to help support some of its new AI features. However, Apple also never said that relationship would be exclusive, and now it appears it’s preparing to invite another partner to the table.
Code found in a recent update on Apple’s backend servers hints that Google Gemini could be the next third-party model supported by Apple Intelligence.
To be clear, Apple Intelligence isn’t “powered by” OpenAI’s ChatGPT in any meaningful way. Apple has built its own large language models (LLMs) to handle on-device AI, with a sophisticated Private Cloud Compute (PCC) infrastructure to help process any AI tasks that are too much for its A-series and M-series silicon to handle on their own.
ChatGPT is nowhere near the core of Apple Intelligence. Instead, it’s an “extension” that bolsters Apple Intelligence in areas where Apple knows its LLMs won’t be up to snuff. Gemini will almost certainly fit into the same slot, providing an alternative to ChatGPT for users who prefer to use Google’s AI chatbot.
Writing Tools, Image Playground, Genmoji, and even basic Siri requests are all powered by Apple’s own LLMs. OpenAI and ChatGPT don’t get involved in any of these without your explicit permission. Even then, ChatGPT is limited to picking up requests that Siri can’t handle on its own — which sadly covers a lot of territory. If anything, Siri has gotten dumber since iOS 18 came along, but it’s also fair to point out that the Apple Intelligence features related to Siri have yet to roll out. These were initially expected to arrive in iOS 18.4, but a report earlier this month suggested we may have to wait until iOS 18.5. That tracks as there’s no evidence of a smarter Siri in the first iOS 18.4 beta.
When you ask Siri a “world knowledge” type of question that it can’t answer on its own, it will ask you if you’d like it to pass the request on to ChatGPT. If (and only if) you grant it permission, it will send the request to OpenAI’s servers — anonymously unless you’ve signed into a ChatGPT account — and give you the answer from there
You can also prefix Siri requests with “Ask ChatGPT” to send them directly to OpenAI’s chatbot, which is probably a good idea for most general knowledge queries. There are many things Siri thinks it can answer, but ChatGPT will give you a better answer. For example, when I asked Siri about the population of Toronto, it came up with census figures from 2021. They were accurate but out of date. ChatGPT was able to supply the latest data from 2024.
As exciting as the ChatGPT partnership was, Apple made it clear from the start that this was just the first extension and more would be coming. During the WWDC presentation on Apple Intelligence, Apple’s Craig Federighi told everyone that Apple planned “to add support for other AI models in the future.”
The snippet, found by code hunter Aaron Perris, shows the addition of “Google” as an alternative choice under “Third Party Model” for Apple Intelligence. It’s unclear where this would appear, but it suggests that Apple is at least laying the groundwork to welcome another AI model into the fold.
It’s not all that surprising that Gemini would be the first of these. Apple and Google were in talks about incorporating Gemini into Apple Intelligence over a year ago, and it’s likely the only reason Gemini didn’t launch alongside ChatGPT was because the two companies couldn’t come to a deal.
However, Gemini has improved in leaps and bounds over the past year. Google has become confident enough in its AI model to launch it as Gemini Live, replacing Google Assistant in its latest Pixel phones — and many others running Android 15. In November, the search giant also launched a standalone Gemini app for iPhone users, providing capabilities similar to OpenAI’s ChatGPT app, plus support for its new Gemini Live voice-driven chatbot and voice assistant.
While Gemini Live isn’t going to replace Siri any more than ChatGPT did (although we’re starting to wish it would), it will likely supplement it similarly, offering to send more complex requests to Gemini and possibly allowing users to interact with it by prefixing requests with something like “Ask Gemini.”
As unusual as it seems for Apple to embrace a chatbot that’s becoming core to the Android experience, many iPhone users are deeply entrenched in Google’s services ecosystem, using services such as Gmail, Google Docs, and Google Calendar, rather than iCloud.
Although OpenAI and Google both charge $20 per month for premium access to ChatGPT and Gemini, Google includes it as part of a Google One AI Premium Plan that also provides 2 TB of storage. In January, Google began including the Gemini Advanced in nearly all Google Workspace plans at no extra cost. By comparison, OpenAI’s $20 monthly subscription to ChatGPT Plus only gives you expanded features for its AI chatbot with no other perks.
Gemini integrates so well with Google’s ecosystem that there’s a much greater risk of folks casting Apple Intelligence than abandoning Gemini for ChatGPT. A lack of Gemini on the iPhone could even be enough to persuade some folks to switch platforms to experience everything Gemini has to offer.
[The information provided in this article has NOT been confirmed by Apple and may be speculation. Provided details may not be factual. Take all rumors, tech or otherwise, with a grain of salt.]
