Craig Federighi says Apple hopes to add Google Gemini and other AI models to iOS 18

As part of its WWDC announcements today, Apple revealed a partnership with OpenAI to bring ChatGPT natively to iOS 18. During a followup interview on Monday, Apple executives Craig Federighi and John Giannandrea elaborated on Apple’s AI goals – and hinted at a possible agreement with Google Gemini in the future.

Moderated by iJustine, the interview was held in Steve Jobs Theater this afternoon, featuring a discussion with John Giannandrea, Apple’s Senior Vice President of Machine Learning and AI Strategy, and Craig Federighi, Senior Vice President of Software Engineering.

During the interview, Federighi specifically referenced Apple’s hopes to eventually let users choose between different models to use with Apple Intelligence. While ChatGPT from OpenAI is the only option right now, Federighi suggested that Google Gemini could come as an option down the line:

We think ultimately people are going to have a preference perhaps for certain models that they want to use, maybe one that’s great for creative writing or one that they prefer for coding. And so we want to enable users ultimately to bring a model of their choice.

And so we may look forward to doing integrations with different models like Google Gemini in the future. I mean, nothing to announce right now, but that’s our direction.

The decision to focus on ChatGPT at the start was because Apple wanted to “start with the best,” according to Federighi.

Apple will start rolling out Apple Intelligence features later this year. The features will be available for free on iPhone 15 Pro and newer and all M-series Macs and iPads.