Apple strikes deal with Google's Gemini to power Siri's AI capabilities

• Apple and Alphabet have reached a deal to allow Google Gemini to power Siri's AI.
• The companies said the deal would power features coming this year.
• The move marks an opportunity for Apple to catch up on AI, and a big distribution win for Gemini.

Apple and Alphabet have reached a deal for Google's Gemini to power Siri's artificial intelligence capabilities.

The companies said these models would help power future Apple Intelligence features, including a more personalized Siri coming this year.

"After careful evaluation, Apple determined that Google's AI technology provides the most capable foundation for Apple Foundation Models and is excited about the innovative new experiences it will unlock for Apple users," Apple and Google wrote in a statement.

CNBC earlier reported the news on Monday.

Shares of Alphabet stock jumped as much as 1% following the news, briefly vaulting the tech giant to a market capitalization of $4 trillion during trading on Monday. Last week, the company overtook Apple as the second most valuable company behind Nvidia.

Speculation of a potential deal has been circulating since last year. Bloomberg reported in November that Apple was considering paying $1 billion a year to use the Gemini model.

"This is what the Street has been waiting for with the elephant in the room for Cupertino revolving around its invisible AI strategy," Wedbush analysts wrote in a note on Monday morning, referring to Apple's Cupertino headquarters, "but we believe this is an incremental positive to both AAPL and GOOGL as a major validation moment for Google as a premier foundation model and for Apple as a stepping stone to accelerate its AI strategy into 2026 and beyond."

Apple had a head start in the AI assistant race when it launched Siri on its iOS devices in 2011.

However, the iPhone maker has lagged behind the competition following the launch of ChatGPT in late 2022. Apple has delayed several upgrades to Siri, and Apple shook up its AI division late last year.

For Google, integration with the leading mobile phone platform in the US is yet another distribution advantage. In addition to being available via a stand-alone app, Gemini powers some Google search features, and it's also the default AI assistant on the company's Pixel smartphones.

Thomas Hudson, a VP principal analyst at the research firm Forrester, told Business Insider that the deal could "look counterintuitive" given Apple and Google compete in the smartphone market.

However, he pointed to Google's long-running deal to make it the default search engine on Apple's iPhones as an example of how the pair have partnered before. In December, a federal judge ordered Google to limit search and AI app contracts to a one-year term.