Apple ships its rebuilt Siri on models built with Google

Apple released a rebuilt Siri on September 14, 2026, shipping it in beta in English with iOS 27. Apple says the assistant, now named Siri AI, runs on Apple Foundation Models custom-built in collaboration with Google and its Gemini models. That places a primary rival inside the core of Apple's software. The same launch arrives rationed: a waitlist, a hardware cutoff, daily usage caps, and no iPhone or iPad version in the European Union.

What Apple says Siri AI does

Apple describes a conversational assistant that draws personal context from Messages, Mail, and Photos, reads what is visible on screen, and carries out multi-step actions across Apple's own apps and some third-party ones. A dedicated Siri app syncs conversation history across devices through iCloud. In the Camera app, Visual Intelligence answers questions about what the viewfinder sees. Apple says the assistant starts in beta in English and will expand to French, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, and Spanish next month.

Apple's own research points to two new models behind the launch: a three-billion-parameter model, and a larger twenty-billion-parameter sparse model that activates only a fraction of itself per request. That split matches the design, where lighter work stays on the phone and heavier work runs on Apple's servers.

Apple's wording deserves attention. The company says the models were custom-built in collaboration with Google and its Gemini models, running on device and on Private Cloud Compute, Apple's server system. Apple has not disclosed how Gemini's technology is used inside them. Phrasing that Siri runs on Gemini, or was trained by Gemini, goes past what Apple has said, even though several outlets have used it.

Access is gated

Using Siri AI requires an eligible device: an iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max, iPhone 16 or later, or iPhone Air. Users then opt in through Settings, which adds them to a waitlist with variable wait times. Older iPhones that can run iOS 27 receive the rest of the update but not the new assistant.

Requests that exceed the on-device model run on Private Cloud Compute, and those server-side features face daily usage limits, as MacRumors reported from Apple's fine print. Apple has said expanded access will eventually be available for a fee and has not set a price. The flagship feature is throttled, hardware-scoped and metered.

Why the Google deal matters

Bloomberg reported in November 2025 that Apple would pay Google roughly $1 billion a year for a custom Gemini model with 1.2 trillion parameters. Neither company has confirmed the figure or the terms, so treat it as reporting rather than settled fact.

My read is that Apple traded internal model autonomy for speed. Building an assistant of this class in-house is a long, capital-heavy project, and a partner's finished work compresses the timeline. The cost is dependence. If Siri AI improves mainly because Google's models improve, then a competitor shapes part of Apple's product rhythm.

Europe gets a split result

Apple has withheld Siri AI from iPhone and iPad users in the EU, citing the Digital Markets Act, the EU's competition rulebook for large platforms. EU users can still reach Siri AI on Mac and Apple Vision Pro. In a June 2026 statement, Craig Federighi, Apple's senior vice president of software engineering, said "their refusal to engage constructively on solutions that preserve privacy and security means we do not currently have a timeline for Siri AI's availability on iOS and iPadOS in the EU." Roughly 452 million people live in the EU, per Eurostat, and any of them on an iPhone or iPad lose the new assistant, while the same feature ships on Apple hardware in that market.

Why it matters

For a buyer, the assistant is now a reason to weigh the model number and a reason the strongest features may cost extra later. For Apple, the launch ties its most personal surface to a rival's research. For regulators, it tests whether a device-scoped exclusion satisfies competition rules while the same feature ships on other hardware.

If expanded Siri AI access arrives with a monthly fee, would you pay for a metered assistant on a phone you already own, or keep to whatever runs on the device?