The race for AI shows no signs of slowing down. We’ve talked about how iOS 18 is expected to integrate many different AI features across the operating system, and Apple is continuing its AI research and development, releasing new research papers and code multiple times a year. month.
But all this internal development doesn’t mean the company won’t adopt the approach of Microsoft, whose Copilot features in Windows are built with licensed OpenAI technology. If Bloomberg’s latest report is true, iOS 18 could have one or more AI features powered by Google’s new Gemini AI.
Mark Gurman cites “people familiar with the situation” to claim that Apple is in talks with Google to license Gemini to power “some new features coming to iPhone software this year.” Gemini is Google’s latest next-generation generative AI model that was just introduced in December (with Gemini 1.5 announced in February). Apple also reportedly recently spoke with OpenAI.
Google paid Apple billions of dollars a year to make its search engine the default search engine for the iPhone’s Safari web browser. Users can change this, but most don’t know how to do it or don’t care. As a result, more than a billion iPhone users perform multiple Google searches per day, helping to solidify Google’s search dominance and, of course, earning the company a ton of money. money by showing advertisements.
It’s unclear how this new deal would compare to that one. The report states that issues such as branding or the scope of how features would be implemented have not yet been decided.
Gemini caused a stir when it arrived earlier this year, but quickly sparked controversy. After a series of social media posts showing inaccurate depictions of historical figures, Google “paused” image generation and admitted that its “adjustments to ensure Gemini showed a range of people did not take into account the cases which clearly should not show a gap.”
Apple is working to introduce many new AI-based features in iOS 18 and has been releasing AI research papers at an increasing rate over the past few months. A deal to use Google’s generative AI may be an indication that Apple is not far enough along in producing some of its own AI tools, or that the effort may be limited in scope – using Gemini for browser-based features like AI-based search or web page summaries, for example, while Apple’s AI is used for other features like image editing and an upgraded Siri.
We probably won’t hear anything concrete about Apple’s AI partners and local tools until WWDC in June, when the company unveils iOS 18, macOS 15, and its other new operating systems.
