Apple’s ‘Glenwood’ Project: $1B for Google’s Gemini as ‘Interim’ Fix

Apple’s “Glenwood” project, the internal effort to fix Siri, has resulted in a $1 billion-a-year “interim” deal with Google. Apple will license Google’s 1.2 trillion parameter Gemini AI to power the new “Linwood” assistant.

This decision was made after an extensive “bake-off” where Google’s “ultrapowerful” AI outperformed models from OpenAI and Anthropic. It will be used for the most complex “summariser” and “planner” functions, which are far beyond the capabilities of Apple’s 150-billion parameter models.

The “Linwood” Siri will be a hybrid system. Apple’s tech will handle simple requests, while Google’s AI will manage multi-step, complex tasks. This allows Apple to instantly close the AI gap.

The project, overseen by Craig Federighi and Mike Rockwell, is a reluctant admission of Apple’s AI lag. While management is pushing for an in-house replacement, this “temporary” deal could last for years.

To maintain its privacy-first stance, Apple is hosting the Gemini model on its own “walled-off” Private Cloud Compute servers. This critical distinction means Google provides the AI, but Apple controls the data.