Apple has officially inked a deal to use Google’s Gemini AI models to power the next generation of its devices. While the partnership was expected, the rumored cost of the arrangement is turning heads across the industry. According to The Financial Times, the contract is structured as a cloud computing agreement that could see Apple paying as much as $5 billion to Google over the next few years.
For years, Apple has taken a cautious approach to the AI infrastructure arms race. While rivals like Google, Microsoft, and Meta have committed hundreds of billions of dollars to building massive AI data centers, Apple has kept its spending relatively lean. In the 2025 fiscal year, Apple’s investment in physical infrastructure sat at roughly $12.7 billion. To put that in perspective, Google is expected to spend nearly $90 billion in the same period. By paying $5 billion for access to Gemini, Apple is effectively leveraging Google’s massive research and development efforts for a fraction of what it would cost to build a competing infrastructure from scratch.
The deal is a significant blow to OpenAI. Since 2024, ChatGPT has been the “overflow” partner for Apple Intelligence, but that partnership appears to be “dying on the vine.” Analysts suggest that having two separate large-scale models doesn’t make financial sense for Apple in the long run. The shift toward Google also has a political edge. Tensions between Apple and OpenAI reportedly cooled after former Apple design icon Jony Ive was hired by OpenAI to create a competing AI hardware device.
With the new Gemini-powered overhaul expected to roll out with iOS 26.4 this spring, users can finally expect a Siri that understands complex context and multi-step requests.
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