Court filings in the Justice Department’s antitrust case against Google reveal that Apple and Google negotiated terms to integrate Google’s Gemini AI model into Siri and the broader Apple Intelligence system. The proposed arrangement, detailed in a trial exhibit containing contract-style language about how Apple would refer users to Gemini, arrives while federal prosecutors are simultaneously seeking remedies to reduce Google’s grip on default search. Bloomberg reporting, drawing on the same case trail, has placed the annual price tag of the deal near $1 billion, though no primary court document confirms that exact figure.
Why Apple is rebuilding Siri on Google’s Gemini matters now
The timing of these negotiations creates a direct collision between two of the largest forces shaping how people interact with AI on their phones. On one track, the DOJ is pressing a federal judge to limit Google’s ability to pay for default placement on Apple devices, a relationship that already generates tens of billions of dollars a year in search revenue sharing. On a parallel track, Apple and Google have been hammering out terms for a new AI-powered default, one that could give Gemini a prominent role inside the assistant that ships on every iPhone and iPad.
The practical consequence for the more than one billion people who use Apple devices is straightforward: if these terms take effect, a Google AI model would handle a meaningful share of the queries and tasks that Siri processes. That shift would give Google a fresh channel for reaching iOS users even if a court order curtails the existing search deal. One way to test whether this pattern holds is to track default-assistant usage data in future transparency disclosures from Apple, watching whether Gemini’s share of iOS AI traffic rises measurably within the first 18 months of any rollout, regardless of what happens with search remedies.
What DOJ exhibits show about the Apple-Gemini terms
The strongest public evidence comes from two primary records filed in U.S. and Plaintiff States v. Google LLC (Case 1:20-cv-03010-APM). The first is the Plaintiffs’ Remedies Proposed Findings of Fact, a redacted legal filing that establishes Google and Apple discussed integrating Gemini into Apple Intelligence. The document references deposition and trial transcript citations that describe negotiations around Gemini distribution and deeper technical integration between the two companies’ systems.
The second record is Trial Exhibit PXR0257, which contains a term-sheet excerpt with verbatim contractual-style language. The exhibit spells out proposed terms for what happens “if Apple uses a third-party generative AI service,” including specific promotion and referral behavior that would direct users toward Gemini in certain implementations. The language reads like a binding framework rather than a casual discussion memo, describing how Apple would introduce third-party generative AI services and channel users toward Google’s model.
Together, these documents show that the two companies moved well beyond exploratory conversations. The term sheet lays out concrete obligations around promotion and referral, the kind of detail that typically appears only after extended commercial negotiation. Bloomberg has reported the annual value of the arrangement at roughly $1 billion, though that figure does not appear in any publicly available court exhibit or DOJ filing. The distinction matters because it means the exact financial scale of the deal rests on institutional reporting rather than a verified primary document.
What the Gemini-Siri deal leaves unanswered
Several gaps in the public record prevent a full picture of what this arrangement would mean in practice. The Remedies Findings and PXR0257 reference negotiations, but neither document contains a final executed agreement. No Apple internal approval documents or Google board authorizations have surfaced in the trial exhibits index. Deposition excerpts cited in the filings remain redacted, so direct statements from Apple or Google executives explaining their rationale for the deal are not publicly available.
The DOJ’s trial exhibits portal lists source PDFs but offers no updated status filings confirming whether the Gemini integration terms described in PXR0257 were actually adopted by either company. That means the public record, as it stands, captures a negotiation in progress rather than a completed transaction. Apple has not disclosed in any earnings call or developer presentation whether Gemini will replace or supplement the on-device models it already uses for Apple Intelligence features.
For developers building on Siri and for users who rely on it daily, the unresolved status creates real uncertainty. If Apple does route a significant share of assistant queries through Gemini, third-party app integrations, privacy handling, and response quality could all shift. The next concrete signal to watch is whether Apple addresses the Gemini relationship at its annual developer conference or in a regulatory filing. Until then, the strongest evidence of the deal’s scope and direction sits in a pair of DOJ exhibits that describe what was proposed but not what was signed.
More from Morning Overview
*This article was researched with the help of AI, with human editors creating the final content.
