The Big Apple AI Sensation Is... Google

A few days ago, I predicted: Apple will surprise everyone in AI in 2026. On-device, privacy-first, their own ecosystem.

Unsuccessfully, because things turned out differently.

The surprise came today, but not as expected: Apple is using Google's Gemini for the new Siri version. Around $1 billion per year for a 1.2 trillion parameter model.

Instead of "we do everything ourselves": "we buy in, until we can maybe do it ourselves someday."

The Real Sensation

Apple and Google. Closely intertwined again.

The two companies that have been waging a bitter war for dominance in our pockets since 2007. Eric Schmidt, then Google's CEO, was still on Apple's board – until Google launched Android and Steve Jobs saw it as a personal betrayal. "Thermonuclear war" is what he called it.

Since then: two ecosystems making each other's lives difficult. iMessage vs. RCS. App Store vs. Play Store. Two worlds that aren't supposed to talk to each other.

And now? Apple is putting its most important software relaunch in years into Google's hands.

The Common Enemy

The common enemy is apparently OpenAI. Or maybe pragmatism is simply stronger than old rivalries.

Apple also tested Anthropic, by the way – but the fees were too high.

What a timeline.