Apple has officially announced a multi-year partnership with Google to integrate the Gemini AI engine into its revamped Siri assistant.
The agreement, confirmed on 12 January 2026, marks a pivotal victory for Alphabet in the AI arms race, driving its market capitalisation past the US$4 trillion milestone for the first time.
Under the deal, Google’s Gemini models and cloud technology will serve as the core foundation for the next generation of Apple Foundation Models,.
It also opens the AI software up to a massive install base of over two billion active devices globally.
Apple, which had previously integrated OpenAI’s ChatGPT for complex outbound queries in late 2024, signalled a strategic shift by selecting Google as its primary partner for this deeper integration.
"After careful evaluation, we determined that Google’s technology provides the most capable foundation for Apple Foundation Models," the companies stated in a joint release.
The financial markets responded with enthusiasm as Alphabet’s stock, which surged approximately 65% throughout 2025, climbed a further 2% on the back of the news.
The rally allowed Alphabet to surpass Apple in valuation, briefly making it the second-most valuable company in the world behind Nvidia.
Analysts suggest the deal validates Google’s Gemini 3 architecture as the industry’s premier enterprise solution, effectively cooling fears that OpenAI would dominate the mobile AI sector.
OpenAI, which reportedly issued a "code red" to accelerate its own development in response to Gemini 3, will now see ChatGPT relegated to a more supporting, opt-in role within the Apple ecosystem.
However, the "unreasonable concentration of power" has drawn criticism from industry rivals and antitrust observers alike.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk took to X to voice concerns over Google’s control across Android, Chrome, and now the iOS intelligence layer.
Despite these concerns, Apple has doubled down on its privacy-first approach to reassure its users.
The companies clarified that while Gemini powers the logic, all processing will occur on-device or via Apple’s Private Cloud Compute to ensure user data remains inaccessible to Google.
For Apple, the partnership is a necessary remedy following a series of setbacks in its own internal AI development.
The company’s original AI-powered Siri upgrade, initially teased for 2025, faced significant development delays and high-level executive turnover.
By outsourcing the foundational intelligence to Google, Apple aims to deliver its long-promised context-aware assistant by late 2026.