Two years later and with the help of Google, this is what Apple’s AI assistant does

Apple promised a radically new Siri in 2024. It didn’t arrive. He promised it again in 2025. And it didn’t come either. Today, in the last keynote of Tim Cook as CEO, has finally presented the complete review of this wizardwhich now runs on the models of artificial intelligence (AI) from Google. Two years late. A multi-million dollar agreement with its biggest historical rival. And a question that hangs in the air: is it enough to make up for lost time?

Several notes before we get into trouble. Apple pays approximately 1 billion dollars a year for licensing a custom Gemini model from Google with some 1.2 trillion parameters, according to Mark Gurman at Bloomberg. It is not a built-in ChatGPT. Nor a direct access to Gemini. It’s a bit different: Apple distills those models to create versions optimized for local execution on iPhone and Mac with its own privacy requirements. But the brain belongs to Google.

What Siri AI can do now

Siri will continue to run on Apple devices, locally, and in this company’s private cloud, maintaining the apple company’s privacy standards. This is the biggest promise that Apple has made to us. And it simply means that Google provides artificial intelligence. And Apple provides the infrastructure, the chips and the promise that no one, not even Google, can access our data.

For the first time, Siri has its own app with a dark interface, a text field, a microphone for voice mode and an icon to attach images and files. The conversations are saved in a history with optional expiration date and are synchronized via iCloud. It is, in essence, a direct competitor to ChatGPT and Gemini in Apple’s own ecosystem.

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