Google's Gemini May Power Upcoming iPhone AI Features

Apple is having discussions with Google over potentially licensing its Gemini AI models for the iPhone, Bloomberg reports.

While the deal has not been finalized, Apple is looking for a partner to provide generative AI tools for iPhone users and is in talks with Google to add its AI tools to future iPhone software. Apple has reportedly also had conversations with OpenAI over potentially licensing its tech, according to the outlet.

Google already pays Apple $18 billion a year to make its search engine the default on Safari. Google also has a number of its own products available on the iPhone as apps, like Gmail, Google Drive, Docs, and Sheets. And Google recently added an AI option for filtering Google Search results, which appears on iPhones as an opt-in pop-up on Safari.

But Apple has been working on generative AI tech of its own, though it's unclear how far along that tech is at the moment. It reportedly bought the startup DarwinAI earlier this year, absorbing its executives into Apple's machine learning division. Apple is also working on a number of new features expected to launch as part of the iPhone's upcoming iOS 18 update. As a result, Siri and Apple's Spotlight search feature may be getting improvements, and AirPods might see fresh AI features too.

Google rebranded its Bard AI tool to Gemini just last month. Since then, Gemini has seen user traffic surge, but it's also already faced substantial controversy with its handling of historical images and restricted Gemini from being able to make any images of people. Last week, Google also throttled Gemini's ability to answer any election-related questions.

Apple CEO Tim Cook hasn't shared much publicly about the company's AI plans, but has said that features are coming "later this year."