- Reports say Apple might choose Google’s Gemini Models
- Siri could get a brain transplant
- Perhaps this is what we all want
It’s been a long wait for the Siri we want and were promised back when Apple first unveiled Apple Intelligence 18 months ago and while Apple now promises it will arrive next year, I’m tired of waiting and wondering and am more than willing to accept the latest rumor as fact: Apple will brain transplant Siri’s and its current Generative AI model work with Gemini and its potential 1.2 trillion parameter model.
This is not fact. Apple has announced nothing. Google has said nothing. Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman is simply following up on rumors he sparked earlier this year that Apple would, instead of continuing work on its own models, substitute the more robust ones available from search partner Google.
What Apple has said is that work is progressing. It’s on track. During the most recent Apple earnings call, Apple CEO Tim Cook told investors and analysts regarding Siri, “We’re making good progress on it and expect to release it next year.”
That doesn’t deviate from what Apple’s Craig Federighi and Greg Jozwiak told me last June. 2026 is the year, and while not said, it was implied that we have some patience, especially after Apple discovered that this was a tougher task than they thought and that the V1 architecture they planned to use simply wasn’t up to snuff.
Earlier this year, Apple started shuffling the deck on its AI team, ousting John Giannandrea – he moved elsewhere in the company – and putting new leadership under the watchful eye of Federighi.
It feels like Apple has a plan, but is also still moving at something other than “AI Time.” Meanwhile, competitors like OpenAI, Perplexity, Amazon, and Google are lapping them, producing ever-more powerful models and generative AI experiences that are arriving on desktops and phones every single day. And consumers are already adopting them.
The AI we need is already here, but where’s Apple?
In my own home, my wife casually switches between platforms when she thinks one might do a better job. When she recently wanted to see what an old piece of furniture might look like refinished in the same paint color as our kitchen cabinets, she casually switched from her usual go-to, ChatGPT, to Gemini (though an iPhone users, Siri is niot even part of this decision set), because she’d heard it was faster (and her company has just opened an enterprise account).
The result was nearly perfect. The fact of the matter is, as much as many of us might love and use ChatGPT for quick answers and summaries, Google’s Gemini models are as good, if not better, in many cases.
It makes sense for Apple to look closely at Google and Gemini as potential solutions to its AI woes.
Sure, Apple has a relationship with ChatGPT, which you can summon through Siri queries, but it is no more integrated into Siri’s brain than the ChatGPT app. Apple works even more closely with Google; it’s Apple’s contracted Search partner for Safari (Google reportedly pays Apple $20 billion a year for the privilege). Google and ChatGPT also live in Apple’s Visual Intelligence. Again, there’s no deep integration here, just a connection to ChatGPT’s prompt ingestor or Google’s image search.
The best kind of brain transplant
If this rumor is true, the relationship between Google, Apple Intelligence, Gemini, and Siri would change in a foundational way. Siri would look the same on the outside but have a super-charged set of Gemini AI models on the inside. While it’s not uncommon for platforms to use multiple models (first- and third-party), I don’t know what of the original Siri will remain. Not that that necessarily matters.
This new Siri would finally fulfill the promise of Apple Intelligence. Think of it like Apple’s version of Copilot, another AI platform that’s powered primarily by a third party’s models, in this case, OpenAI’s GPT-5 (yes, the same one that powers ChatGPT). This, too, is another reason for Apple to choose Google Gemini over OpenAI. After all, Apple doesn’t want Siri to work like Copilot – or, rather, it wants Siri to work at least as well, but in ways distinctly Gemini, or at least Siri.
Doing so will represent something of a defeat for Apple. Let’s face it, we were all excited by the promise of a truly system- and personal information-aware Siri, one that could combine that intelligence to become an in-your-hand agent, an assistant who could intuit your needs because it knew the platform, the hardware, and, most importantly, you.
It’s becoming clear that Apple can’t seem to pull this off, at least not in time to stay in this AI race. It needs Google. Apple and Siri need Gemini. And I’m OK with that.
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lance.ulanoff@futurenet.com (Lance Ulanoff)
