Google is said to be on the verge of striking a deal with Apple to bring Gemini integration to the iPhone. According to a report, this move will make Gemini available as an artificial intelligence (AI) assistant option on Apple’s devices, helping the native voice-based assistant, Siri, deliver responses to more complex queries. Although the deal has not yet been fully agreed upon, several talks have been reported to have already taken place between the CEOs of both tech behemoths, and if everything falls in line, Gemini on iPhone could become available by the end of the year.
Gemini Integration on iPhone
The Verge reports that Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai confirmed Google’s ambitions of bringing native Gemini integration to the iPhone during the hearing of the United States of America v. Google search monopoly trail on Wednesday. When asked about this rumoured deal, Pichai labelled it as “Correct” and shared details about his meeting with Apple CEO Tim Cook.
“He [Cook] was trying to understand our plans for how we’re evolving AI technologies, our roadmap,” Pichai said during the hearing, adding that both CEOs also discussed plans of “Gemini app distribution as well.”
The Alphabet CEO noted that Google hopes to strike a deal with Apple to bring Gemini integration to the iPhone by the middle of this year, and the rollout could begin by the end of 2025. It is expected to be similar to the existing ChatGPT integration in Siri, which was introduced with iOS 18 last year. A completely opt-in option, it enables Siri to take the help of OpenAI’s chatbot to write text, create images, or respond to complex queries.
As per the report, Cook also told Pichai that more third-party AI models would be available on Apple Intelligence later this year.
However, this is not the first time that plans for Apple to introduce other AI models on the iPhone have surfaced. During a post-keynote session at WWDC 2024 in June 2024, Apple Senior Vice President Craig Federighi reportedly hinted towards plans of building Gemini integration into Siri.
“We want to enable users ultimately to choose the models they want, maybe Google Gemini in the future,” the official was reported to have said at the time.
Further, MacRumors analyst Aaron Perris also discovered strings of code from the iOS 18.4 beta which added Google under a “Third-party model” section window, hinting that Apple might be working to integrate Gemini AI models with the operating system.
