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Apple Gains Deep Access to Google’s Gemini, With Rights to Distill On‑Device Models

The access lets Apple train small iPhone-ready models using Gemini’s reasoning for faster, more private Siri features.

Overview

  • Apple’s deal, described Wednesday by The Information, gives the company complete Gemini access inside its own data centers for close inspection and customization.
  • Engineers can use distillation, a method where a small student model learns from a large teacher model, to copy Gemini’s internal steps such as its chain of thought.
  • These distilled models are cheaper to run and sized for on-device use, which can cut latency and keep more data on the iPhone instead of a cloud server.
  • Siri will keep using Gemini for now, while Apple’s Foundation Models team pursues in‑house work with unclear long‑term goals, according to the reporting.
  • Apple plans to show major Siri updates at WWDC in June, and outlets note both the promise of on-device gains and friction from Gemini’s chatbot and coding tilt.