On the tech podcast TBPN, Bloomberg journalist Mark Gurman divulged that when Apple was in the process of choosing a technology partner for the next - generation Siri, it gave serious consideration to using Anthropic's Claude large language model. In the highly competitive tech landscape, this was a significant decision - making point.
Ultimately, though, Apple made the announcement that the new iteration of Siri would be built on Google's Gemini platform. This choice was mainly shaped by cost - related negotiations. In the business world of tech giants, cost - effectiveness plays a crucial role in determining partnerships.
Apple and Google have forged a multi - year cooperation agreement. Under this pact, Google's Gemini model will serve as the foundational support for Apple's intelligent features, which of course includes the new version of Siri. This kind of long - term collaboration is not uncommon in the tech industry, where companies often join forces to leverage each other's strengths.
The new version of Siri is anticipated to make its debut alongside iOS 26.4 in 2026. It is set to boast more robust personalized interaction capabilities. In today's digital age, users expect highly customized experiences from their devices, and this enhancement aims to meet those expectations. Moreover, it will support multimodal interaction, allowing users to interact with Siri through various modes such as voice, touch, and perhaps even gesture in the future. Additionally, it will be capable of ultra - long text processing, a feature that can be extremely useful for tasks like drafting long documents or analyzing extensive reports.
In this collaborative endeavor, Apple has adopted a paid licensing model. It will pay approximately $1 billion annually to acquire the usage rights of Google's Gemini model. This move is a strategic one for Apple, as it enables the company to swiftly make up for the shortcomings in its self - developed large models. By doing so, Apple can keep up with the ever - growing user demands for intelligent and seamless experiences on their Apple devices.
