Apple Taps Google for Siri Revamp: Will It Reignite iPhone Upgrade Cycle?

It’s official! No, I’m not talking about Apple’s (AAPL) Apple Card moving to JPMorgan Chase (JPM) from Goldman Sachs (GS) , but Apple formally announcing the use of Google (GOOGL) to power its AI features. We talked quite a bit about this last summer as to whether a link-up between the two was likely, and over the ensuing months, it seemed like an increasing likelihood.

Today’s announcement also confirmed that Google Gemini will power Apple’s upcoming revamp for Siri, something we widely called for. As part of the Apple user base, we, too, have often thought Siri fell far short of what many expected it to do. The upcoming revamp, which is also expected to include a new iOS icon, should result in Apple’s digital assistant becoming much more capable, in part because Gemini's large language model is significantly larger than Apple's own model.

The key is that Gemini models will form the foundation for new Apple Intelligence features, enhancing Siri's ability to understand complex commands and personalize responses. And yes, Apple will continue its on-device processing and use its Private Cloud Compute for sensitive data, maintaining its privacy standards.

We've also called for the revamped Siri to be a potential iPhone upgrade cycle accelerator. With the smartphone market likely to feel the impact of tight memory capacity in terms of potential unit supply and pricing, the revamped Siri will need to be more than just incrementally better than the current one. And because Apple has experienced several leadership defections over as many quarters, the company and CEO Tim Cook need a win.

That also means expectations will be high for the revamped Siri, which is why we are anxious to see the new digital assistant in action. The more robust it is, the larger the upgrade cycle we are likely to see.

As of now, the next-generation version of Siri is expected to be introduced with iOS 26.4, which is projected to be released to the general public in March or April. For those that may not know, I have been in the Apple Beta Software program for some time, and currently I am running the beta version of iOS 26.3. As soon as the beta program has iOS 26.4 with the revamped Siri, I’ll share my reaction and other takeaways with you. And if it does knock my socks off, we’ll revisit AAPL shares based on where they are trading at the time.

In terms of Google, we’ve expected the win, but the formal announcement reaffirms our stance on the company’s position on AI as well as the company’s shares. While the terms of the deal were not announced, some reports speculate Apple is paying Google ~$1 billion for Gemini’s capabilities. The degree to which Gemini will become more capable because of the Apple relationship is hard to measure, given Apple’s privacy standards.

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At the time of publication, TheStreet Pro Portfolio was long AAPL and GOOGL.