Apple is making a “reluctant” $1 billion-a-year bet on Google’s Gemini AI to secure Siri’s future. This “interim solution” will see Google’s 1.2 trillion parameter model become the “behind-the-scenes” engine for the new “Linwood” Siri.
This move, part of the “Glenwood” project, is a tacit admission that Apple’s 150-billion parameter models are not competitive. Google’s “ultrapowerful” AI won a “bake-off” against OpenAI and Anthropic for the job.
The new Siri, launching in the spring, will be a hybrid. Google’s AI will handle the complex “summariser” and “planner” functions, while Apple’s tech will manage simple requests.
For Google, this is a major win. For Apple, it’s a “temporary fix” as its teams, under Craig Federighi and Mike Rockwell, rush to build a 1T+ replacement model.
The entire partnership hinges on privacy. The Gemini model will be hosted on Apple’s “walled-off” Private Cloud Compute servers, guaranteeing Google gets its $1B fee but no access to user data.
