The buzziest of Gemini capabilities, including real-time voice conversations and image generation, have proven to be hit-and-miss, while the chatbot itself continues to struggle when it comes to serving reliable and verified information without invention or confusion (and Gemini is not alone in this). By hitching a core part of its smartphone experience to Google’s wagon, Apple could make it much more difficult for consumers to find an AI-free path to information.

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On the other hand, Apple has arguably proven itself to be the most cautious and trustworthy of the tech giants when it comes to AI. If it uses Google’s raw resources to create responsible features, the iPhone could become a superior overall platform for AI.

If consumers consider the major issues with these features to be around privacy, utility and seamless integration, Apple is ideally positioned to deliver an experience that’s preferable to what is currently found on Pixel and Galaxy phones.

However, the iPhone-maker also has other challenges ahead of it. It appears determined to deliver the more personal, more context-aware AI Siri it originally promised years ago, but it needs to find a way to avoid the problem Gemini and ChatGPT have with lying and overconfidence.

Apple also runs platforms favoured by the creative industry, and will likely want to avoid the perception that its technology is based on art that Google has scraped and repurposed behind creators’ backs.

The final piece of the puzzle will be price. Consumers currently pay Apple subscription money for tangible benefits including cloud storage and premium news content, but will the company charge for high-end AI like Google and OpenAI do? Perhaps unsurprisingly, analysts view that as inevitable.

“This was a necessary move for Apple to deliver its own personal assistant within its hardware ecosystem, while expecting to deliver a new subscription-based revenue stream to the largest consumer installed base in the world,” Ives said.

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