Wedoany.com Report on Feb 6th, Apple and Google's significant collaboration in the field of artificial intelligence has raised concerns regarding user data privacy and security. During a recent financial results briefing for analysts, Google CEO Sundar Pichai stated that Google has become Apple's "preferred cloud provider," though he did not disclose specific details. Pichai noted, "I'm excited to be partnering with the iPhone company and to be working together on 'the next-generation Apple foundational model based on Gemini technology.'" Google's Chief Business Officer, Philipp Schindler, later used the same phrasing. When analysts pressed for more details about the partnership, neither executive responded.
When announcing the partnership in January, Apple and Google emphasized in a joint statement that Apple Intelligence "continues to run on Apple devices and in private cloud compute environments" and "adheres to Apple's privacy standards." The statement did not specifically mention Siri. Apple CEO Tim Cook also sidestepped analysts' questions at the end of January, stating, "Regarding the agreement with Google, we will not be disclosing the details."
Currently, some of Apple Intelligence's language models run locally on devices, while more complex queries are sent to larger models on Apple's servers. Users are typically unaware of this process. Apple has committed that within its private cloud compute, data is used solely to execute operations and is immediately deleted afterward. It is neither used for AI training nor subjected to other processing, and employees cannot view this data. However, end-to-end encryption has not yet been implemented. Interactions with Siri are currently primarily transcribed and evaluated by Apple, whereas data from users utilizing Siri's ChatGPT integration feature is sent to OpenAI servers.
According to Bloomberg journalist Mark Gurman, the initial version of the new Siri based on Gemini technology will run on Apple's cloud infrastructure. However, whether future AI features in iOS 27—including the anticipated Siri chatbot—will rely on Google Cloud is still under discussion. Google recently launched a solution inspired by the private cloud compute concept, but it remains unclear if it will be used for this purpose. Apple has long used Google Cloud services to host iCloud data, and this AI partnership could further deepen collaboration between the two companies in the cloud computing domain.
