will depend on to complete its work to enhance its Siri virtual assistant and add other artificial intelligence features to the iPhone as the trend-setting firm plays catch-up in technology’s latest frenzy.
The agreement allowing Apple to access Google’s AI technology was announced Monday in a joint statement from the Silicon Valley powerhouses. This partnership will leverage Google’s Gemini technology to tailor a suite of AI features called “Apple Intelligence” for the iPhone and other Apple products.
After Google and other companies took an early lead in the AI race, Apple vowed to establish its first major stake in the field with a range of new features that were supposed to arrive on the iPhone
However, many of Apple’s AI features remain in the development phase, while Google and have been rolling out more of this technology on their own devices. One of the most noticeable AI gaps on the iPhone is the promised overhaul of Siri, which was meant to turn the often-confused assistant into a more conversational and versatile multitasker.
Google even subtly mocked the iPhone’s AI shortcomings in ads promoting the release of its
Apple’s AI missteps led the Cupertino, California-based company to that its Siri upgrade won’t be ready until some point in 2026.
Securing Apple’s implicit endorsement of its AI represents a coup for Google, which has been steadily releasing more features built on its Gemini technology in and . This progress has intensified Google’s competition with OpenAI and its ChatGPT chatbot—already, OpenAI has a deal with Apple making it an option on the iPhone.
Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives hailed the Apple deal as a “major validation moment for Google” in a Monday research note.
Google’s AI inroads have helped its parent company, Alphabet Inc., become slightly more valuable than Apple in investors’ eyes. Alphabet hit a milestone Monday when it surpassed a $4 trillion market value for the first time during early morning trading, before slipping back below that threshold later in the session.
Even so, Alphabet’s market value remained about $150 billion above Apple’s—Apple had ranked as the world’s most valuable company for years until the rise of AI shifted the stakes.
Three other companies have joined the $4 trillion club in the past year, including AI chipmaker Nvidia . Apple and also broke the barrier last year, though the market values of these two long-time rivals are now below $4 trillion.
Nvidia’s market value in late October before pulling back amid recurring worries that the hundreds of billions of dollars pouring into AI technology may be creating an investment bubble that will eventually burst. With its AI-designed chipsets still in high demand, Nvidia remains atop the heap with a $4.5 trillion market value.
Alphabet’s stock price has surged since early September when the U.S. government’s attempt to break up its internet empire—this followed a ruling last year that branded its ubiquitous search engine
In an effort to prevent further abuses, a federal judge overseeing the case ordered a shake-up that investors widely interpreted as a relative slap on the wrist. This has resulted in a 36% increase in Alphabet’s stock price since then, creating an additional $1.4 trillion in shareholder wealth.
The ruling also left the door open for the long-running search alliance between Google and Apple. Google pays Apple more than $20 billion annually to be the preferred search engine on the iPhone and other Apple products—an arrangement still allowed with a few modifications under the judge’s decision in the search case.