"It's not about the money... it's about sending a message. And the message is: we give up." - Tim Cook, probably

Apple has spent the better part of a decade pretending Siri wasn’t a national embarrassment. Now Bloomberg says the company is in talks with Google to let Gemini power the next-gen assistant. That’s right: the same Apple that markets “privacy” like it’s holy scripture is considering outsourcing the brain of its flagship voice assistant to the company that built an empire on harvesting data.

(Source: Giphy) 

In short, we all know Apple is years behind in AI, right now… or at least they’ve painted the picture as such. WWDC 2024 teased a “smarter Siri” that was supposed to ship with the iPhone 16. That launch is now pushed to 2026. Engineering setbacks, leadership reshuffles, and the slow bleed of talent to rivals (see: Zuck's $200 million savage incentives) have left Apple with a choice… build slowly and keep falling behind, or rent someone else’s engine.Now obviously, Google is already building models that can run on Apple’s private cloud servers. Especially as Apple has done deals like this before… Remember, it already takes billions from Google every year to keep search as the iPhone’s default. If regulators don’t kill that one, what’s another handshake in the shadows? Exactly. 

(Source: Bloomberg) 

Meaning the markets read is nothing short of rendezvous optimism. Both stocks popped on the rumor. Apple rose 1.4%, Google climbed 2.9%. Translation: Wall Street doesn’t care whether Siri gets better… it cares whether Apple finally shows a path to being relevant in AI. Right now, investors see a company with the cash to buy its way back into the conversation, even if it means admitting failure. 

But, but, but… if Apple goes with Gemini, it’s more than a technical decision. It’s the quiet acknowledgment that the company famous for building its own walled garden can’t grow its own crops anymore. Siri becomes just another white-labeled AI agent, Apple becomes just another front-end for models built somewhere else. This is exactly why investors should pay attention. This isn’t about whether Siri sets reminders better in 2026. It’s about whether Apple is still in control of its ecosystem, or whether it’s slipping into middleman territory while Google, OpenAI, and Anthropic own the real leverage.

(Source: Giphy) 

And if that “control” for Apple cedes, even at the edges, the balance of power shifts. That’s the signal buried under all the hype. From there it won’t be “think different”, it’ll be “rent different”. For now though, nothing is set and stone, but this is definitely something to take note of as we head into next week’s trading. So with that, keep your head on the swivel and place your bets accordingly. Until next time, friends…

At the time of publishing, Stocks.News holds positions in Apple, and Me as mentioned in the article.