AI Breakthrough Radar

Apple's AI Strategy: Custom Foundation Models and Gemini-Powered Siri Rebuild

Apple's AI Strategy: Custom Foundation Models and Gemini-Powered Siri Rebuild

Key Questions

What models and partnership did Apple announce for its AI strategy?

Apple introduced its own AFM models distilled from Gemini along with a partnership to rebuild Siri using Google Gemini. This enables cross-app and on-screen awareness through a three-tier architecture combining models, personal context, and actions.

How does Apple's AI approach address privacy concerns?

The strategy emphasizes privacy-first on-device compute while integrating Apple and Gemini models. This hybrid setup challenges perceptions of Apple lagging in AI with a pragmatic approach.

What capabilities will the rebuilt Siri offer?

The new Siri will feature cross-app awareness and on-screen understanding powered by the combined Apple and Gemini models. It integrates personal context for more effective actions across the device.

Apple introduced its third-generation Foundation Models (AFM) with a sparse on-device architecture using flash memory and per-prompt routing to overcome DRAM limits. Server models include multimodal and image generation, built with Google and NVIDIA. This builds on the earlier AFM + Gemini partnership for Siri rebuild with cross-app and on-screen awareness, using a three-tier architecture with privacy-first on-device compute. Challenges the narrative that Apple is lagging in AI.

Sources (1)
Updated Jun 11, 2026