$1B Apple-Google deal sparks buzz over Siri-Gemini integration

NEW YORK: Apple is close to a deal with another tech giant, Google, under which the iPhone maker will pay Google about $1 billion a year.

Under the deal, Apple plans to reimagine its virtual assistant Siri using a custom version of Google’s Gemini AI model.

The move is a major departure for Apple, which has traditionally relied on its own technology.

For now, however, it plans to use Google’s model as a temporary solution until its own artificial intelligence system is powerful enough to handle the new list of upcoming features.

Google’s custom AI model contains about 1.2 trillion parameters, a measure of the software’s complexity and capability.

In comparison, Apple’s current Apple intelligence model has only 150 billion parameters, making Google’s model about 8 times more powerful.

According to the report, Apple also considered models from OpenAI and Anthropic earlier this year.

After evaluating models from all three companies, Apple has decided to move forward with Google.

Bloomberg says the new Siri is likely to launch next spring, but since it is still several months away, the plan could change.