Apple's newly announced partnership with Google to use Gemini models for Siri and Apple Intelligence could be worth as much as $5 billion, according to one analyst's estimate.
The deal is structured as a cloud computing contract that will see Apple pay "several billion dollars to Google over time," according to the Financial Times (paywalled), citing a person familiar with the agreement. Gene Munster at Deepwater Asset Management puts the value at $5 billion for Google.
The arrangement is reminiscent of a deal made two decades ago that made Google's search engine the default on Apple devices, which grew to be worth about $20 billion annually to Apple.
Apple said it determined that Google's technology provides the "most capable foundation" for its Apple Foundation Models. However, the Gemini partnership raises questions about the future of Apple's existing ChatGPT integration, which has been part of Apple Intelligence since 2024. Apple said the Google deal does not affect the ChatGPT integration, but Munster expressed skepticism about its long-term prospects.
"I think that the ChatGPT integration is going to die on the vine... having two large models, given the economies of scale, wouldn't make a ton of sense for Apple," he told FT.
A person close to OpenAI told the newspaper that the company had taken "a conscious decision to not become the custom model provider for Apple" last autumn to focus on building its own AI device. That hardware effort is being led by former Apple design chief Jony Ive, who was hired by OpenAI in May 2024 – a move Munster suggested may have soured Apple on a deeper OpenAI partnership.
Despite the $5 billion figure, Apple's Gemini deal is comparatively conservative compared to other companies' AI infrastructure spending. Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and Meta have all committed hundreds of billions of dollars to new AI data centers since ChatGPT launched in 2022, but Apple has kept its investment in physical infrastructure at roughly 3 percent of revenue, according to FT's analysis.
For fiscal 2025, Apple's spending on property, plant, and equipment was $12.7 billion. Compare that to the roughly $90 billion Google is expected to spend this year. One former Apple executive told the FT that the Google deal was "a necessary byproduct of Apple's decision not to 'go big' on its AI investments like its competitors."
The next-generation version of Siri is expected to be introduced with iOS 26.4, which will likely be released to the general public in March or April.
