BIG DEAL! After OpenAI, Apple in talks with Google over licensing Gemini for AI features on iPhones

In an interesting turn of events, Apple is reportedly in talks with Google over the use of its Large Language Model (LLM) Gemini for powering artificial intelligence (AI) features on the iPhone. This development comes just days after the iPhone maker allegedly bought Canadian AI startup DarwinAI ahead of the reveal of iOS 18 in the summer which is reported to bring big AI features to the iPhone.

Also Read: Apple iPhone 16 Leak Hints at Upgraded Neural Engine to Support iOS 18’s AI Features

Apple in talks with Google

Speaking to people familiar with the matter, Bloomberg reported that the Cupertino-based tech giant is in ‘“active negotiations” with Google to license its AI engine Gemini as it looks to catch up in the race where its rivals such as Google and Microsoft already have several notable AI features on their respective smartphones.

Apple also reportedly held talks with OpenAI to see whether it could use its generative AI model to bring AI features to the iPhone this year.

While the terms of the deal or the branding are yet to be finalized, Bloomberg reported that any announcement of this big partnership between Apple and Google could be held until June when the iPhone maker hosts its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC).

iOS 18 to bring AI to iPhone

Previous reports have suggested that Apple is betting on iOS 18 to bring AI capabilities to the iPhone as it plays a game of catch-up against rivals. Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman has already tipped it to be one of “the biggest updates” in iPhone’s history as it aims to support Apple’s AI push. 

Consequently, one of the biggest beneficiaries of this AI push is expected to be Siri, Apple’s assistant for iPhone, and it may be powered by LLMs. But the company is not likely to stop here. Reports suggest that Apple is looking to incorporate AI into as many applications as possible including Apple Music, Keynote, Pages, and even AppleCare.

Also Read: Mark Gurman Tips iOS 18 to be the ‘Biggest’ Update in iPhone’s History

To handle these AI demands, the iPhone maker started building about 100 AI servers in 2023, and more could follow this year, according to Jeff Pu, an analyst at a Hong Kong investment firm. It may also bring an on-device AI technology, which is being called ‘edge AI’.

Advancements in AI

This big news arrives just days after it was revealed that Apple researchers have had a breakthrough when it comes to training AI models on both text and images. A research paper on the same was published on March 14. Titled “MM1: Methods, Analysis & Insights from Multimodal LLM Pre-training”, it demonstrates how using several architectures for training data and models may help achieve state-of-the-art results across multiple benchmarks.

“We demonstrate that for large-scale multimodal pre-training using a careful mix of image-caption, interleaved image-text, and text-only data is crucial for achieving state-of-the-art few-shot results across multiple benchmarks”, the researchers said.

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