On August 23, according to media reports, Apple is negotiating a partnership with Google for preliminary discussions, and Apple is exploring the adoption of Google's Gemini AI to support its improved Siri voice assistant. This marks a key step for Apple in outsourcing artificial intelligence technology. After the news was released, Google A rose 3.8% and Apple rose about 1.4%.

Apple's "AI breakthrough": Siri is going to change its "brain"?

Apple has recently approached Alphabet's Google to explore the possibility of creating a custom AI model for the new version of Siri, which is expected to launch next year. Google has begun training a model that can run on Apple's servers.

Siri, which has been used for more than ten years, sometimes witty, sometimes "artificial intellectual disability", may usher in an "AI upgrade".

Why did Apple suddenly "bow its head" to find foreign aid? In a word: Apple is a little late on the AI train. In the past few years, Google, Microsoft, and Amazon have made great strides in AI models, while Apple has been "stuffy and self-developed", emphasizing privacy and device-side operation. The result is: Siri functions lag behind Google Assistant and Alexa; the AI experience of the iOS ecosystem is significantly lagging behind.

Developers and users alike are asking: Where has Apple's AI gone? This year, Apple finally couldn't sit still - at the beginning of the year, it secretly reached out to Anthropic and OpenAI to test using Claude or ChatGPT to drive Siri. Now it's turning to Google, focusing on the maturity of its Gemini model and its successful experience working with Android devices (such as providing AI features for Samsung phones).

This shows that Apple is no longer "self-developed", but "walks on two legs" - use it if you can, and cooperate if you can.

Google's opportunity: from a "search portal" to an "AI base". If the cooperation is achieved, it will be a historic breakthrough: Google's AI model will be deeply embedded in the Apple ecosystem for the first time; not only Siri, but may expand to email, memos, health data and other scenarios in the future; Google will upgrade from a "default search engine" to an "AI capability provider"

You know, Google has relied on a similar model to provide AI support for Samsung devices. If you win Apple this time, it is equivalent to selling the AI "operating system" to the world's most profitable hardware company.

Siri's "darkest hour" and Apple's AI life and death

The Siri upgrade, which was originally scheduled to be launched this spring, has been delayed by a whole year. How important is this upgrade? Let Siri call up your calendar, email, photos and other personal data to automatically perform tasks; Implement a true full-voice control device - for example: "Send the beach photo I took yesterday to Mr. Zhang with 'The project is going well'". Sounds like the shock of the iPhone when it was first released?

That's right, but Apple "overturned" this time. The reason is simple: self-developed AI models cannot support such a complex task. It is difficult to balance data understanding, contextual coherence, and privacy protection. The project progressed slowly, eventually leading to the transfer of John Giannandrea, head of AI, from the core development team. This is extremely rare within Apple - the equivalent of a "tech leader" being replaced in a key battle.

They made a key decision: to bet on self-development and run out of products first. As a result, a "parallel internal and external" AI breakthrough battle began.

Apple was initially most optimistic about Anthropic (the developer of the Claude model) for three reasons: solid technology, emphasis on safety and explainability; The founder is from OpenAI, which is in line with Apple's values; Amazon is its main investor, and cloud resources are guaranteed. But here comes the problem: Anthropic's asking price is too high, the financial terms are "too harsh", and Apple decisively turns around.

As a result, the list of negotiators expanded: OpenAI: ChatGPT's dominant experience, but Microsoft is the majority shareholder, and Apple does not want to be controlled by others; Google: The Gemini model is mature and has experience in providing AI support for Samsung devices, so cooperation is the most feasible.

Currently, Google is training a custom model for Apple that can run on its servers - using Google's AI power while avoiding user data from leaving the Apple ecosystem, which can be called a "compromise between privacy and performance".

The difficult turn from "lonely brave" to "collaborator"

Apple's negotiations with OpenAI and Google are not simple feature upgrades, but a completely different level of cooperation with the existing ChatGPT integration in "Apple Intelligence". Currently, Siri "quietly asks" ChatGPT when it encounters complex problems - but this is only a fallback option for knowledge queries, just like secretly flipping through a book when an exam is not available.

And this time the discussion is: let the external large model directly become the "brain" of Siri and reconstruct the voice assistant from the bottom. Google Gemini is also promoting similar integrations, indicating that Apple is not alone.

Apple is not surrendering altogether, it is trying to hold on to the last line of defense: privacy. Regardless of which model is used, Apple insists that third-party AI must run on Apple's own private cloud computing servers, which use Mac chips for remote processing. This is a compromise strategy of "borrowing brains without backdoors" - gaining powerful AI capabilities without completely handing over control.

Apple is moving from "technological idealism" to "realist breakout". It is no longer obsessed with "first release", but pursues "last win".

Investment advice|Beneficiaries of the AI cooperation ecosystem

If the cooperation with Google is implemented, Alphabet (GOOGL) will achieve a historic breakthrough, and its valuation is expected to increase; Although OpenAI does not control, its technological influence will continue to expand, focusing on Microsoft's (MSFT) AI agent revenue; Anthropic is still a potential partner, backed by Amazon (AMZN), and its long-term value cannot be ignored.