# Apple Just Handed Siri's Brain to Google and Left the EU Without It > Source: > Published: 2026-09-16 10:08:27+00:00 *Apple's new Siri doesn't think for itself anymore. It runs on Google's Gemini 2.5 Pro, in a deal reportedly worth about $1 billion a year, and Europe isn't getting it.* Apple shipped iOS 27 on Monday, September 14, 2026, and tucked inside the release is a fact the company spent years trying to avoid admitting: Siri no longer runs on Apple's own artificial intelligence. It runs on Gemini 2.5 Pro, a model built by Google. The arrangement is reportedly worth roughly $1 billion a year to Google, according to multiple reports on the partnership. Gemini 2.5 Pro is about eight times the parameter count of the in-house model Apple had been quietly developing for Siri, and Apple is running a custom, larger version of it rather than the consumer product you'd get in the Gemini app. Building a frontier model from scratch takes years and billions of dollars. Apple decided it didn't have either to spare. That's a striking reversal for a company that has spent a decade selling privacy as a product feature. So Apple built a workaround. Every Siri query gets routed through Apple's Private Cloud Compute, a system running on Nvidia chips that strips out identifying information before the request reaches Google's servers. Google reportedly never learns who's asking. It doesn't see their contacts, or know where they are. Apple keeps the wrapper. Google supplies the brain inside it. The new Siri can hold conversations that run 20 turns deep without losing the thread, something the old version routinely failed at. It can act across Mail, Messages, and Notes on its own, drafting replies or pulling details from a thread without you naming the app. It translates conversations live, in Messages, FaceTime, and phone calls. None of that is small. It's the difference between an assistant that answers one question at a time and one that can run an afternoon of small tasks for you. [TSMC's August Revenue Just Broke NT$500 Billion for the First Time Ever](https://startupfortune.com/tsmcs-august-revenue-just-broke-nt500-billion-for-the-first-time-ever/) TSMC's August revenue hit a record NT$514.81 billion, or about $16.3 billion, up 53.3% year-over-year and its fourth straight monthly record. The surge is driven by relentless AI chip demand and an unusually fast 2nm ramp tied to Apple's iPhone 18. - [TSMC August revenue breaks NT$500 billion record](https://startupfortune.com/tsmcs-august-revenue-just-broke-nt500-billion-for-the-first-time-ever/) - [AI chip demand drives TSMC monthly sales growth](https://startupfortune.com/tsmcs-august-revenue-just-broke-nt500-billion-for-the-first-time-ever/) Not everyone gets it. iOS 27 is rolling out worldwide this week, except in the European Union, where old Siri stays put. Apple's own newsroom, along with TechTimes and Heise Online, reported the same underlying dispute: the European Commission's reading of the Digital Markets Act would require Apple to give rival AI assistants the same direct access to a user's private data, and the same ability to control other installed apps, that Siri itself gets. Apple proposed a compromise it called a "Trusted System Agent" framework, meant to open up that access without handing outside apps a blank check into a user's photos and messages. The Commission rejected it. Apple shipped without the EU rather than accept the terms. Frankly, that's not a technical limitation. It's a standoff, and European iPhone owners are the ones stuck without the upgrade while regulators and Apple's lawyers argue over what interoperability should mean. ## Google wins twice Here's the part that should worry OpenAI. Apple had spent two years building ChatGPT into Apple Intelligence as an optional plug-in for tasks Siri couldn't handle on its own. That arrangement is still technically in place, but it's now a side door next to Google's position as Siri's actual engine. Google already pays Apple somewhere around $20 billion a year to stay the default search engine on iPhones and iPads, a figure that surfaced during the Justice Department's antitrust case against Google. Now money runs the other way too: Apple is reportedly paying Google roughly $1 billion a year for Gemini access. Two companies regulators keep investigating for market dominance just deepened their financial ties to each other, inside the same product. For Apple, the calculation is simple enough. Building a competitive frontier model in-house wasn't moving fast enough, and Siri had fallen visibly behind ChatGPT and Google's own Gemini app for years. Renting the best available model and wrapping it in Apple's privacy engineering was the faster path to a Siri that doesn't embarrass the company at its own product launches. The harder question is what happens to iPhone owners inside the EU. There's no published timeline for when, or if, Siri AI arrives there. For now, the assistant on their phones is the same one that's been falling behind for years, while everyone else moves on to something that can actually hold a conversation. **Also read:** [Sparkian Puts Multiple AI Models In One Workspace Instead Of Five Tabs](https://startupfortune.com/sparkian-puts-multiple-ai-models-in-one-workspace-instead-of-five-tabs/) • [Anthropic Leases First Australian Data Center in a $31.9bn Queensland Deal](https://startupfortune.com/anthropic-leases-first-australian-data-center-in-a-319bn-queensland-deal/) • [Jensen Huang and Mark Zuckerberg Both Reject Dario Amodei's AI Slowdown Plan](https://startupfortune.com/jensen-huang-and-mark-zuckerberg-both-reject-dario-amodeis-ai-slowdown-plan/) [John Ternus Becomes Apple's CEO As Tim Cook Steps Down After Fifteen Years](https://startupfortune.com/john-ternus-becomes-apples-ceo-as-tim-cook-steps-down-after-fifteen-years/) Tim Cook's fifteen-year run as Apple CEO ended August 31 with a farewell memo to staff, handing the role to hardware chief John Ternus on September 1. Ternus now has to prove Apple's billion-dollar bet on Google's Gemini can fix Siri and close the company's AI gap. - [john ternus new apple ceo after tim cook](https://startupfortune.com/john-ternus-becomes-apples-ceo-as-tim-cook-steps-down-after-fifteen-years/) - [tim cook steps down as apple chief executive](https://startupfortune.com/john-ternus-becomes-apples-ceo-as-tim-cook-steps-down-after-fifteen-years/) *This article is posted in [AI News](https://startupfortune.com/category/ai/), check it out for more related stories.* ## Join the discussion [Open in the community →](https://startupfortune.com/community/) Almost there. Sign in and your reply posts straight away.