In a move that has marked a notable shift in Silicon Valley’s long-running rivalry, Apple has turned to Google to help usher in the next era of artificial intelligence across its products. The company has selected Google’s Gemini models to underpin a sweeping set of AI upgrades, including a long-awaited overhaul of Siri.

The multi-year partnership is set to reshape how hundreds of millions of users interact with Apple’s digital assistant, blending Google’s cutting-edge generative AI technology with Apple’s longstanding emphasis on privacy and on-device processing.

For Apple, the deal represents a pragmatic step to accelerate its AI ambitions at a time when competitors are rapidly pushing advanced assistants into the mainstream.

Details of the collaboration were disclosed in a joint announcement and first reported by CNBC, confirming that Gemini models and Google’s cloud infrastructure will serve as a core component of Apple’s so-called Apple Foundation Models.

Those models will not only power Siri, but also future Apple products and features built around advanced AI capabilities.

Apple has said the system will rely on a hybrid approach, with some AI tasks handled directly on users’ devices and more complex requests processed through Apple’s own private cloud compute. The company emphasizes that user data will be deleted after processing and not used to train external models, reinforcing its privacy-first positioning.

The partnership has been months in the making. In November, Bloomberg reported that Apple had negotiated a custom version of Gemini and could be paying Google as much as $1 billion annually for access to the technology, though neither company has publicly confirmed the financial terms.

Taken together, the agreement underscores how critical speed has become in the race to streamline automated assistants. Rather than wait to develop large language models entirely in-house, Apple appears willing to lean on a rival’s AI expertise to quickly deliver a smarter, more capable assistant to its users.