Apple and Google are reportedly in talks over having the latter’s Gemini artificial intelligence (AI) engine power some features on the iPhone.
Bloomberg News reported that the two tech giants are in negotiations about a licencing deal, which could see new features using Gemini on iPhone before the end of the year, quoting unnamed people ‘familiar with the situation’.
However, it is thought that any deal would not be announced until Apple’s annual conference of developers in June. It is also not certain that the two will agree a deal; Apple has also held talks with OpenAI – the company behind ChatGPT – too, Bloomberg added.
Currently, Apple, Google and OpenAI are not commenting publicly on the rumours – but this is standard when private negotiations are ongoing.
Apple and Google have a long-standing partnership already, which is why Google is the default search engine on the Apple Safari web browser.
However, any deal would likely be scrutinised by regulators in the US – the current Apple-Google deal is already being investigated.
If a deal is struck, it would be the highest-profile partnership for Gemini. There are reckoned to be 2 billion Apple devices that could use Gemini.
Google also partnered with Samsung in January to deploy its GenAI technology into the latter’s Galaxy S24 smartphones.
AI is a priority for Apple, as the company’s CEO, Tim Cook, said in February that the company was making significant investment into generative AI, and would reveal more about how the company plans to use it later in the year. Apple has been testing its own large language model AI for some time.
It is known that Apple is preparing new AI capabilities for the next version of iPhone’s operating system, iOS 18, using its own AI models.
