Apple is in talks with Google about using the search giant's generative artificial intelligence model, called Gemini, in its next iPhones as it races to embrace the technology that has transformed the tech industry.
Three people familiar with the talks said the talks were preliminary and the exact scope of a potential agreement had not yet been determined. Apple is also in talks with other AI companies to harness the power of large language models that can analyze vast amounts of data and generate text on their own, one of the people said.
Apple CEO Tim Cook has promised investors that the company will introduce new generative AI capabilities this year. The company's smartphone rivals Samsung and Google are already adding Gemini to their latest devices for editing videos and summarizing audio recordings.
Apple and Google declined to comment. Bloomberg earlier reported on the talks between the two sides.
Apple and Google's deal on generative AI extends one of the longest-running partnerships in technology. Ever since Apple introduced his iPhone in 2007, Google has contributed significantly to the device's success. The company initially provided his Google Maps for navigation and the default search engine for his Safari browser on his iPhone, but now Google has a lucrative contract that pays Apple more than $18 billion a year. It becomes.
Google's discussion of bringing generative AI capabilities to the iPhone would be the latest example of Apple filling a gap in its products. Apple's efforts to develop its own large-scale language models, the technology behind chatbots such as ChatGPT and Gemini, have been slow, two people familiar with Apple development said.
Apple's delays in AI product releases came at a cost. After a decade as the world's most valuable publicly traded company, it was dethroned this year by Microsoft, which has aggressively pursued AI. This technology has the potential to disrupt businesses and create trillions of dollars in economic value.
Despite the delays, Apple has the potential to become a big player in the AI ​​space.The company currently has more than 2 billion devices in use, making it an attractive partner for the likes of Google. The company's reputation for protecting customers' personal information could also serve it well in the future, when AI services help people manage their calendars and health data.
If agreed, the Gemini model could be introduced to iPhones around the world, giving Google access to a large user base and making generative AI even more mainstream. Virtually overnight, Google was able to get its AI into use by more consumers than its biggest rival, OpenAI, which developed ChatGPT, making the deal with Apple an attractive prospect. becomes.
(The New York Times sued OpenAI and Microsoft in December for copyright infringement of news content related to AI systems.)
Apple's selection of Google as its AI supplier would be a significant vote of confidence for the search giant, whose AI ambitions have been repeatedly thwarted. Bard, the company's first AI chatbot, debuted last March to middling reviews and struggled to gain as many users as ChatGPT.
In February, Google debuted a new chatbot called Gemini. The chatbot ran into trouble last month after users noticed that its image generator produced illustrations of historical figures that were not racially accurate and refused to produce images of white people in most cases, leading to bias. led to criticism. Google has promised to resolve the issue by disabling the ability to create images of people.
Bernstein Research analyst Toni Sacconaghi said in a note Tuesday that the Apple-Google deal is a “win-win,” providing Apple with generative AI for the iPhone and Google's work with Gemini. He said he had verified the efforts. He also said that Apple doesn't need to own the iPhone's AI model to make a profit, and could instead receive a fee from Google. Google currently charges $19.99 per month for the Gemini Advanced app.
Businesses are not yet taking advantage of generative AI The costs associated with running large-scale language models on the cloud are staggering, and consumers and business customers are only just beginning to pay for the emerging technology. But they are optimistic that profits will increase as the capabilities of AI systems improve and the costs of building the data centers that power them fall.
Apple and Google's new partnership could come under intense scrutiny from US regulators. The Justice Department is in the final stages of a lawsuit against Google, accusing it of stifling competition by paying Apple to be the default search engine for services such as the iPhone. Judge Amit P. Mehta of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, who will preside over the non-jury trial, is expected to issue a verdict this year.