Global AI Market in Upheaval: Apple to Adopt Rival Google's Gemini Model

Gemini Chosen as the Foundation Model for Apple Intelligence
Gemini to Be Deployed on Apple Devices Within the Year
Google Expected to Virtually Dominate Smartphone AI Market

Google, which has emerged as a new powerhouse in the global artificial intelligence (AI) market, has joined forces with Apple, its chief rival in the Android phone space. Apple, the largest competitor in the smartphone market with a highly loyal customer base, has adopted Google's AI model, Gemini. With Google AI, equipped with its own AI semiconductors and a wealth of training data from its search engine, partnering with Apple, a major new ally, a seismic shift in the AI market is expected. On this day, Alphabet, Google's parent company, saw its stock price surge, pushing its market capitalization past $4 trillion (approximately 5,800 trillion won).

On January 12 (local time), Apple and Google issued a joint statement announcing, "We have signed an agreement to build the next-generation Apple AI foundation model based on Google's Gemini model and cloud technology." As a result, Apple's AI services, such as "Apple Intelligence" and the personal assistant "Siri," are expected to operate on Gemini later this year.

The specific terms of this agreement have not been disclosed. However, foreign media previously reported in November of last year that the two companies were negotiating a deal estimated to be worth $1 billion (about 1.4 trillion won) annually. Through this partnership, users of Apple devices-including iPhones, iPads, and Macs, which are estimated to number over 2 billion-are expected to gain access to Gemini.

The decision by Apple to adopt Google's AI model is attributed to the lack of competitiveness of "Apple Intelligence." Apple has been criticized for lagging behind its competitors in both AI model development and services, earning the label of a "latecomer" in AI. This stands in stark contrast to Android smartphones, such as Samsung's Galaxy, which have rapidly introduced AI features powered by Gemini. The agentic AI feature "Personalized Siri," which Apple promoted with the launch of Apple Intelligence in 2024, was originally scheduled for release last year, but due to development delays, it is now expected to debut later this year.

The Gemini model that Apple has chosen to use reportedly has about 1.2 trillion parameters. This is ten times more than the 150 billion parameters used by Apple's current in-house model for Apple Intelligence. The more parameters an AI model has, the better it performs complex computations and reasoning tasks. Currently, Apple also utilizes OpenAI's ChatGPT through Apple Intelligence, providing answers via ChatGPT when user requests are particularly complex. While Apple will leverage both Google and OpenAI models, industry observers expect Gemini to become the primary engine.

However, even if Apple devices utilize the Gemini model, it appears that users' data will not be used for model training. The version of Gemini employed by Apple operates exclusively on-device within smartphones like the iPhone, or through Apple's proprietary "Private Cloud Compute" servers, which are isolated from external networks.

With Gemini being integrated into Apple Intelligence, Google's influence in the AI market is expected to grow even further. Google, through its subsidiary DeepMind, was an early leader in AI with innovations such as the Go-playing AI AlphaGo. However, Bard, the predecessor to Gemini, was widely seen as trailing far behind ChatGPT, leading to perceptions that Google was losing ground to OpenAI. With the launch of Gemini and its subsequent performance improvements, Google has now reached a competitive footing. The Gemini 3.0 Pro, released in November 2025, has even surpassed the latest versions of ChatGPT in performance. As Google is now seen as a challenger to OpenAI, the competition is expected to intensify further.

This collaboration is likely to result in Google effectively monopolizing the smartphone AI market. Considering that Google Android and Apple iOS together dominate the global smartphone OS market, Gemini will essentially be present on virtually all smartphones worldwide capable of running AI. An industry insider commented, "With Apple adopting Google's Gemini as the brain of its AI services, it is effectively seen as a declaration that Apple is abandoning its own AI development," and added, "By reaching out to Google, Apple, which has lagged behind in AI, has helped expand Google's AI domain even further."

Google is recognized for possessing a "full AI stack," with its own chips for AI model development and abundant data for training. The company uses its proprietary AI accelerator, the Tensor Processing Unit (TPU), for Gemini's development and operation. The seventh-generation TPU, "Ironwood," unveiled by Google in November 2025, is considered a strong competitor to Nvidia, which dominates the AI semiconductor market. Google also benefits from its vast data resources, collected through the world's largest search engine and platforms like YouTube, which can be leveraged for AI training and personalization.

Samsung Electronics is also weighing the introduction of new AI models, in addition to its own "Gauss" and Google's Gemini, for its Galaxy smartphones. According to major foreign media, Samsung plans to integrate Perplexity's model into the Bixby AI assistant on Galaxy smartphones. Bixby, powered by Perplexity, is expected to be available starting with the Galaxy S26 series, which is scheduled for release at the end of next month.