This is news that could shake up the tech and artificial intelligence landscape. Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, Google's parent company, says he hopes to see his company's AI technology, Gemini, integrated into iPhones as early as this year. These discussions took place as part of the antitrust lawsuit filed by the US government against Google.
Google's AI could arrive on iPhones as early as this year
A new agreement between the two giants, however, would mark a major turning point regarding AI. Sundar Pichai indicated that he had a series of conversations with Tim Cook, Apple's CEO, throughout 2024 and hopes to conclude a deal by the middle of this year. Apple currently uses its own AI system, known as Apple Intelligence, for the majority of artificial intelligence tasks on iPhones, iPads, and Macs. However, the company has also partnered with OpenAI's ChatGPT for integration into Siri and Writing Tools. As part of this partnership, Apple routes queries through its own servers, removes identifiers, and prevents the recorded data from being used to train models. ChatGPT is limited to answering questions and assisting with writing, without controlling the system's functionality. A partnership with Gemini would likely follow similar rules.
Apple and Google have a long history of partnerships. Google notably provided YouTube as a native app on the iPhone in 2007 and powered the Maps app on Apple devices until 2012. Their most significant agreement to date concerns search in Safari, where Google is the default search engine. Pichai made this statement during the U.S. government's antitrust lawsuit against Google over this agreement.
A Win-Win?
A potential agreement with Google would allow Apple to accelerate its AI timeline, providing immediate capabilities while it develops its own technology. In return, Google would see the reach of its AI tools significantly expanded through Gemini's integration into iPhones. This proposed collaboration comes amid strong industry momentum focused on generative AI.
The topic was already on the table last year and Tim Cook's firm had not ruled out the idea of offering Gemini in its products. We were already wondering at the time about the impact of such a partnership and the risk for the Apple company of moving towards Google. Beyond their very different philosophies, particularly in terms of data protection, the fact of integrating Google's AI would confirm that Apple seems to be out of the loop in the race to AI.
If this agreement between the two companies goes through, it could be announced at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC). The Cupertino-based company's event will be held from June 9 to 13. This is when Apple is expected to unveil iOS 19, iPadOS 19, and the next version of macOS. Gemini-based features could debut in late 2025, potentially alongside the iPhone 17. For Apple, this could be the fastest way to close the AI gap with its rivals, directly benefiting millions of iPhone users.
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