Google’s Gemini could be the dominant mobile AI assistant by the end of the year according to its CEO, appearing on virtually every smartphone in the work.
Sundar Pichai has been in court talking about his company’s plans for AI, and he revealed that Gemini could be added to iOS 19 as an AI option when it launches later this year.
Given that Gemini is already the dominant AI assistant on Android, the world’s biggest OS (never mind mobile OS), a move over to iOS would put Google’s AI in a powerful position.
The company’s biggest rival, ChatGPT, is already partly integrated into iOS 18’s Apple Intelligence feature set, but its presence on Android is non-existent unless you download the ChatGPT app.
Why Gemini is almost certainly coming to iOS
Pichai claims to have held a number of talks with his Apple counterpart, Tim Cook, throughout 2024, with an AI deal likely to be struck by the middle of 2025.
Code found in the iOS 18.4 beta earlier this year seems to corroborate this Gemini iOS integration.
This might sound like a strange partnership given Apple’s huge expenditure on its own AI initiative, but there are a couple of things to note here.
As Bloomberg notes, Apple has always been pragmatic in areas where Google has unmatched expertise. YouTube used to come preinstalled on early iPhone models, while Google also used to provide the iPhone’s mapping solution before Apple Maps was launched in 2012.
Bigger than both of those provisions is Apple’s deal with Google for the latter to provide the default search engine on Safari – a deal that’s said to be worth billions of dollars each year.
Connor Jewiss / Foundry
Apple Intelligence isn’t looking too smart
The fact that a similar deal appears set to be struck in the emerging world of AI is telling in itself. It suggests that Google has already established a dominant position in this fledgling industry, and that Apple is way off the pace.
Apple is predicted to finally launch its AI Siri overhaul with iOS 19, which will launch alongside the iPhone 17. Widespread rumours of in-fighting and mismanagement seem to explain why Apple’s big AI push stalled in the wake of the iPhone 16 launch.
It seems Google could be ready to swoop in and provide iOS with some much needed smarts.
