Comment by johnthuss
3 days ago
The biggest NEW thing here is that this isn't white-labeled. Apple is officially acknowledging Google as the model that will be powering Siri. That explicit acknowledgment is a pretty big deal. It will make it harder for Apple to switch to its own models later on.
Where does it say that it won't be white-labeled?
Yes, Apple is acknowledging that Google's Gemini will be powering Siri and that is a big deal, but are they going to be acknowledging it in the product or is this just an acknowledgment to investors?
Apple doesn't hide where many of their components come from, but that doesn't mean that those brands are credited in the product. There's no "fab by TSMC" or "camera sensors by Sony" or "display by Samsung" on an iPhone box.
It's possible that Apple will credit Gemini within the UI, but that isn't contained in the article or video. If Apple uses a Gemini-based model anonymously, it would be easy to switch away from it in the future - just as Apple had used both Samsung and TSMC fabs, or how Apple has used both Samsung and Japan Display. Heck, we know that Apple has bought cloud services from AWS and Google, but we don't have "iCloud by AWS and GCP."
Yes, this is a more public announcement than Apple's display and camera part suppliers, but those aren't really hidden. Apple's dealings with Qualcomm have been extremely public. Apple's use of TSMC is extremely public. To me, this is Apple saying "hey CNBC/investors, we've settled on using Gemini to get next-gen Siri happening so you all can feel safe that we aren't rudderless on next-gen Siri."
Apple won't take the risk of being blamed for AI answers being incorrect. They will attribute Google/Gemini so users know how to be mad at if it doesn't work as expected.
Apple is already taking the risk of being blamed for their own AI right now, though (an AI that is much more prone to incredibly dumb errors than Gemini), so I don't find it that obvious that they wouldn't just continue taking the blame for Siri as they already do, except with an actually smarter Siri.
This is a double-edged sword. Apple would love any failure to be blamed on Google, but not the branding to go with it.
Apple's brand is so dominant that even if they say Siri is "powered by Google", most users will still perceive it as an Apple service. The only way that changes is if Apple consistently and prominently surfaces the Google name on Siri — which seems unlikely (but who knows when the stakes are so high).
There's zero chance Apple would want to end up with a situation of "buy our iPhone with Gemini" competing with "buy our Android with Gemini".
They will do everything possible to avoid that and so re-brand is the only likely outcome.
If I were Goodle, I'd offer Apple a very significant discount to have visible branding of "powered by Gemini".
I'm sure Apple is more than happy to pay the premium for cleanness.
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I don't see why - iOS originally shipped with Google Maps as standard, for example. Macs shipped with Internet Explorer as standard before Safari existed
The Google Maps situation is a great example of why this will be hard. When Apple switched to their own maps it was a huge failure resulting in a rare public apology from the company. In order to switch you have to be able to do absolutely everything that the previous solution offered without loss of quality. Given Google's competence in AI development that will be a high bar to meet.
several years after that they still have their own Maps though, they didn't go back to Google Maps.
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Well, yeah, Apple's Maps.app wasn't good enough when it launched (it's solid now though). That feels like a separate thing from white labeling and lock-in. Obviously they would have to switch to something of similar or better quality or users will be upset.
But it's a whole lot easier to switch from Gemini to Claude or Gemini to a hypothetical good proprietary LLM if it's white label instead of "iOS with Gemini"
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They switched despite Apple Maps having poor data for a reason:
Google wanted to shove ads in it. Apple refused and to switch.
Their hand was forced by that refusal.
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I was in agreement with the parent before I read this, and now I'm in agreement with you. It is a great example, I know so many people who never switched back to Apple Maps because it was so poor initially. Personally I find it a considerably better experience than Google Maps these days, but those lost users still aren't coming back.
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It wouldn't have gone any better if the original mapping solution had been a white-labeled "Apple Maps" secretly powered by Google Map.
The problem with the analogy is that users were asked to change their habits. Apple switching Siri models behind the scenes is much less problematic.
Apple ultimately developed their own map application specifically because Google was unwilling to remove the Google logo from the Google Maps app, no matter the price.
It'll absolutely be interesting to see if "Google" or "Gemini" appear anywhere in the new Siri UI.
As someone who hasn’t used Google Search in several years, I will be upset and less inclined to use the AI if it’s kicking me out to Google search result pages to show results. This is what I fear. Some of this already happens with Siri and Apple Intelligence today. I’m sure Google would love to see even more of it, to serve up ads and take advantage of their new revenue streams in agentic shopping.
Why so?
Apple explicitly acknowledged that they were using OpenAI’s GPT models before this, and now they’re quite easily switching to Google’s Gemini
The ChatGPT integration was heavily gated by Apple and required explicit opt-in. That won't be the case with the Gemini integration. Apple wants this to just work. The privacy concerns will be mitigated because Apple will be hosting this model themselves in their Private Cloud Compute. This will be a much more tightly integrated solution than ChatGPT was.
And you don't think they will include an abstraction layer?
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I guess the question is, when are they going to use their own model?
Surely research money is not the problem. Can't be lack of competence either, I think.
I think they want it to work well with web search. That’s why Google is the obvious choice. Also their ai offering is low risk of getting eliminated where as open ai could fail at any time
It appears to be lack of competence given they lied about the initial features of Apple Intelligence.
First, they touted features that no one actually built and then fired their AI figurehead “leader” who had no coherent execution plan—also, there appears to have been territorial squabbling going on, about who would build what.
How on earth did Apple Senior Management allow this to unravel? Too much focus on Services, yet ignoring their absolute failures with Siri and the bullshit that was Apple Intelligence, when AI spending is in the trillions?
There is just too much money being burned in AI for Apple to keep researchers. Also models have no respect for original art which leads to a branding issue of being a platform for artists.
Apple is competent at timing when to step into a market and I would guess they are waiting for AI to evolve beyond being considered untrustworthy slop.
Don't think that's an especially big deal, they've always included third party data in Siri or the OS which is usually credited (Example: Maps with Foursquare or TomTom, Flight information from FlightAware, Weather data and many more).
They can also put "Google" in the forever-necessary disclaimer
Google AI can make mistakes