I’ve been thinking about why Apple partnered with Google (Gemini) instead of OpenAI for its Apple Intelligence / Siri foundation, and I’m curious what others think.
On paper, OpenAI has the strongest consumer mindshare in AI right now. But structurally, OpenAI is also building its own interface, memory, agents, and potentially even devices. That makes it less of a neutral supplier and more of a future OS-level competitor.
Google, by contrast, seems more willing to act as infrastructure: models + cloud + scale, while letting Apple own the interface, privacy boundary, memory, and user relationship.
It also feels like Apple wouldn’t accept:
• OpenAI owning or learning from Apple user interaction data
• OpenAI branding being associated with Siri’s intelligence
• Any partner that might eventually replace Apple’s role in the cognition stack
Google can survive being invisible under the hood. OpenAI’s business model kind of depends on being the visible intelligence layer.
So my take is: this wasn’t about “best model,” but about which partner Apple could control long-term without giving up sovereignty.