Apple & Google: A Marriage of Convenience or a Privacy Nightmare?

Hello everyone! 👋

It’s January 16, 2026, and we need to talk. About the elephant in the room. Or rather: About the bitten apple that just got into bed with the colorful search engine. Yes, Apple and Google are joining forces. Officially.

As someone who has been on the web for over 20 years and witnessed the “browser wars” and “OS wars”, this news initially feels like a glitch in the matrix. But if we dig deeper – and that’s exactly what we’re doing today – it suddenly makes frighteningly good sense. I’ve dug through the technical whitepapers and press releases so you don’t have to. Grab a coffee, we’re taking a look at what this deal means for your data, your iPhone, and the future of AI.

The Deal: When the Arch-Rival Becomes a Partner

Let’s put the facts on the table: Apple and Google have announced a multi-year partnership. The core? The next generation of “Apple Intelligence” and above all our problem child Siri will be powered by Google’s Gemini models in the future [1, 2].

We are not talking about small change here. Estimates suggest that Apple transfers around $1 billion annually to Google [5]. That sounds like a lot, but it’s a bargain when you consider what building their own infrastructure would have cost. IMO, this is a brilliant move by Tim Cook: He simply buys the best AI infrastructure as a service instead of sinking billions into his own data centers that could be obsolete tomorrow.

But wait a minute… Apple pays Google? Wasn’t it always the other way around? Correct. Google pays approx. $20 billion annually to Apple to remain the default search engine on the iPhone. So Apple is essentially financing its AI purchase from the petty cash of Google revenues. A fascinating zero-sum game [5].

Why Now? The Siri Dilemma

Let’s be honest: Siri has been… difficult in recent years. While we were discussing philosophical questions with ChatGPT, Siri often failed at the weather forecast for the day after tomorrow. The old architecture (“Command-and-Control”) was at its end [3].

Apple had two options:

1. Muddle through and hope that their own model “Ajax” eventually becomes good enough.
2. Show pragmatism and license the best technology on the market.

They chose number 2. Google’s Gemini is “multimodal”, meaning it understands text, image, audio, and video simultaneously. This is exactly what Apple needs for features like “Screen Awareness” – i.e., that Siri “sees” what you currently have on the screen [7].

Privacy: My Biggest Headache (and the All-Clear)

As a privacy advocate, all alarm bells ring for me when I hear “Google” and “my private data” in one sentence. But this is where it gets technically really interesting. Apple has built an architecture called Private Cloud Compute (PCC), which I took a closer look at [8].

Here’s how it works explained for “normal” people: When you ask Siri something too complex for your phone (e.g., “Plan a trip based on my emails”), the following happens:

1. Your iPhone anonymizes the request. Your Apple ID, IP address, etc. are removed.
2. The data goes to a server that has no memory (“stateless”). As soon as the answer is calculated, all data in the RAM is deleted [8].
3. Google (or the Gemini model) only sees the text of the request but doesn’t know who it comes from.
4. There are no hard drives where data could be stored.

IMO, this is currently the safest way to use cloud AI. Apple even allows security researchers to verify the software of these servers [21]. That’s a level of transparency I would wish from others.

The Loser: OpenAI Left in the Rain

Remember WWDC 2024? ChatGPT was the star guest back then. In the new constellation, OpenAI looks more like the intern who gets to fetch coffee. ChatGPT remains as an optional extension, but the core infrastructure now belongs to Google [6].

The problem for OpenAI: They are dependent on Microsoft’s servers (Azure). Google, on the other hand, owns the entire chain – from its own AI chips (TPUs) to the model. That makes them faster and cheaper. For OpenAI, this is a bitter blow, as they are denied direct access to billions of iPhone users as “standard AI”.

What Does This Mean for Us Users? (Siri 2.0)

From spring 2026 (with iOS 26.4), we should reap the rewards of this marriage [3]. Siri is finally supposed to become a real agent. An example: You look at a restaurant on Instagram and simply say: “Reserve a table for me here for tonight.” Siri (with Gemini brain) recognizes the restaurant name in the image, checks your calendar, and opens the reservation app. Without you having to copy and paste back and forth [4, 5].

That is the vision: Technology that simply works and takes work off our hands instead of annoying us with “I didn’t understand that”.

Critical Thoughts: A New Duopoly?

As much as I look forward to a functioning Siri, politically the deal leaves a bitter aftertaste. We are seeing the emergence of a de facto duopoly here. Google now delivers the intelligence for Android and iOS. That is an incredible concentration of power [1].

Regulatory authorities in the US and the EU will look at this closely. If two companies control the entire market for mobile AI, the air gets thin for innovation from smaller players. As a democrat and European, I hope that the EU looks closely here with the Digital Markets Act (DMA) and perhaps even enforces a “choice screen” for AI models [4].

Conclusion

Apple swallowed its pride to save the product. For us users, this is good news for now: We finally get the AI features we deserve, packaged in a privacy concept that – at least on paper – looks solid. Whether it is wise for the entire tech world to make itself dependent on a single AI supplier is another story.

How do you see it? Do you trust Apple’s “Private Cloud”, or do you have stomach aches at the thought that Google is pulling the strings in the background? Feel free to write to me!

Stay curious and critical!

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Sources & References

[1] Businesstoday.in: Apple and Google join hands to fix Siri; Gemini to get integrated in Apple products (Accessed: 16.01.2026). Link [2] Google Blog: Joint statement from Google and Apple (Accessed: 16.01.2026). Link [3] Times of India: Apple chooses Google’s Gemini to finally fix Siri (Accessed: 16.01.2026). Link [4] Computerworld: What we know about Apple’s Google Gemini deal for AI (Accessed: 16.01.2026). Link [5] Techloy: Apple Hands the Keys to Siri to Google in $1B Gemini AI Deal (Accessed: 16.01.2026). Link [6] Times of India: Why Apple picked Google Gemini over OpenAI’s ChatGPT (Accessed: 16.01.2026). Link [7] Unite.AI: Apple Intelligence’s Hybrid AI Stack (Accessed: 16.01.2026). Link [8] Apple Security: Core Security & Privacy Requirements | Documentation (Accessed: 16.01.2026). Link [9] Apple Security Blog: Security research on Private Cloud Compute (Accessed: 16.01.2026). Link