Google confirms it’s close to getting Gemini support on iPhones

Google is close to striking a deal with Apple to integrate Gemini into the iPhone. During the search monopoly trial on Wednesday, Google CEO Sundar Pichai confirmed the company expects to strike a Gemini deal with Apple by the middle of this year and suggested it would roll out by the end of 2025.

The integration would presumably allow Siri to call on Gemini to answer more complex questions, similar to the integration that Apple launched with OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Apple senior vice president Craig Federighi hinted at plans to build Gemini into its Apple Intelligence feature last June, when the AI service was first announced. “We want to enable users ultimately to choose the models they want, maybe Google Gemini in the future,” Federighi said at the time.

Today’s update came in response to questions asked by Department of Justice lawyer Veronica Onyema. Pichai answered “Correct” when asked about these plans. He also said he had met with Apple CEO Tim Cook to discuss AI development. “He [Cook] was trying to understand our plans for how we’re evolving AI technologies, our roadmap, and as part of that, we talked about the Gemini app distribution as well,” Pichai said. He added that he was told by Cook that more third-party AI models would ship on Apple Intelligence later this year.

There are other signs that this integration is on the way. In February, MacRumors contributor Aaron Perris found references to “Google” as an Apple Intelligence model choice in an iOS 18.4 beta. With Apple’s ChatGPT integration, Siri automatically asks for permission to use the third-party AI model to answer more complex questions. ChatGPT can also analyze photos and generate images based on text.