In addition to using Gemini to enhance features in its applications and services, Google makes this system available to third-party developers. Apple is reportedly in talks with Google to license Gemini for the iPhone.
Apple may bet on Google Gemini for artificial intelligence
According to Bloomberg, there are “active negotiations to allow Apple to license Gemini, Google's suite of generative AI models, to power some new features coming to iPhone software this year.” Apple also spoke with OpenAI, which powers Microsoft's AI capabilities.
Apple is specifically looking for a partnership in cloud-based generative AI, with the new information citing text and image generation as examples of what Gemini could be used for. At the same time, Apple is working to offer its own on-device AI models and capabilities with the upcoming release of iOS 18.
Discussions are still ongoing and it is unclear what the AI deal will look like. This would be a significant expansion of the existing relationship – search engine by default – between the two companies.
Looking at the rest of the industry, Google announced a partnership with Samsung.
This was in February so that Gemini could have summary features in the Galaxy S24's notes and voice recording applications, as well as in the keyboard. Samsung is also using text-to-image casting. This is for a generative editing feature in the photo gallery app. All of these features require server-side processing, but Samsung is also using a version of Gemini on the device.
We remind you that Google offers Gemini in three variants, with Pro being used by the majority of original and third-party applications. Gemini 1.0 Pro powers the free version of gemini.google.com, while 1.0 Ultra is used in the paid Gemini Advanced tier.
Gemini 1.0 is available in stable release. But in mid-February, Google presented Gemini 1.5 with a greatly expanded context window that allows more information to be absorbed. This can make the “result more consistent, relevant and useful”.
Bloomberg does not expect a deal to be announced until WWDC in June, with Apple opting for OpenAI or even multiple vendors, as is possible in today's report.