Apple’s Siri Revamp with Google Gemini: What It Means for Users

Apple has signed a multi-year pact with Google to use its Gemini artificial intelligence models for the next generation of Siri. The announcement on Monday is anticipated to mark a significant milestone for Apple users, as they will soon have access to a significantly more advanced voice assistant on their devices.

The agreement has also fortified the long-standing partnership between the two companies, with Google's technology having access to Apple's installed base of more than two billion active devices.

Google already powers Samsung's "Galaxy AI". After the deal was announced, Alphabet's market value crossed 4 trillion dollars on Monday, with its stock rising 0.5 per cent in afternoon trading after a 65 per cent jump last year driven by optimism around its Gemini 3 model.

What changes for Apple users?
Apple had earlier promised the arrival of a smarter Siri with the iOS 18.4 update, but the new development has shifted the timeline. According to the report, users with iOS 26.4 will have access to the revamped Siri in March this year.

The upgrade will bring three major improvements. First, Siri will be able to understand personal context by scanning details stored on the phone, such as emails, messages, and calendar events. This will allow the assistant to answer questions like "When is Mom's flight landing?" or "Play that podcast Jamie recommended."

The second feature expected to be launched is on-screen awareness, which could act accordingly after recognising the on-screen activities. With the feature Siri can add an address received through a message directly to the contact card. It will avoid the manual copy-paste need, the report emphasised.
Thirdly, the development would enable Siri to perform multi-step actions across apps. Siri will be able to find a photo, edit it, and then email it to a contact in one request.

Privacy protections explained
According to the report, Apple users have shared some key concerns over their privacy as they wonder whether Google would gain access to their Siri conversations. Google's Gemini normally uses user interactions to train its models. Apple has clarified that this will not happen with Siri.

Apple has made it clear that their Private Cloud Compute will ensure privacy, with the system deciding whether a request can be handled on the device or if it needs more computing power. If extra capacity is required, only the relevant data is sent to Apple's own servers, which run on Apple-designed chips. The company insists that this data is never stored, never accessible by Apple itself, and only used to complete the request.

Craig Federighi, Apple's senior vice president of Software Engineering, explained during the launch of iOS 18: "Private Cloud Compute uses your data only to fulfil your request and never stores it, making sure it's never accessible to anyone, including Apple. And we've designed the system so that independent experts can verify these protections."

Background to the deal
The new agreement comes as Apple has already had a partnership with Google to make Google the default search engine on its devices. That arrangement has long been active, driving traffic for Google while generating tens of billions in annual revenue for Apple.

What next?
For Apple users, the Gemini deal means Siri will finally catch up with rivals in intelligence and usability. The assistant will soon be able to understand context, act on what is on the screen, and carry out complex tasks across apps. Apple says all of this will happen while maintaining its "industry-leading privacy standards".