Google parent joins $4 trillion club as Apple chooses its AI
Boost for Alphabet after iPhone maker says it will introduce the technology behind Gemini chatbot into products such as Siri this year
Monday January 12 2026, 7.45pm GMT, The Times
Alphabet, Google’s parent company, has reached a $4 trillion market valuation after Apple announced it would integrate the technology behind the company’s Gemini chatbot into its products this year.
Apple, led by Tim Cook, said it would introduce Google’s technology into products such as Siri, the voice-activated personal assistant on its iPhones, iPads and Apple Watches, stating that the Gemini software represents the “most capable foundation” for use in its devices across the world.
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Alphabet’s class A shares rose 1.7 per cent to briefly reach $334.04 each after the announcement, before falling back later in the trading session.
Google first launched its Gemini large-language model in December 2023 and the deal with Apple will grant the internet giant access to a market of more than two billion devices. Alphabet has been competing with OpenAI, the owner of ChatGPT, for a leading position in AI.
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In a joint statement, Apple and Google said they had entered into a “multi-year collaboration” for developing the next set of large-language models used in the Apple Intelligence division, the technology giant’s personalised AI system. The models have been branded Apple Foundation Models and they are accessible to software developers through the company’s so-called Foundation Models framework — a set of tools that creators can use to integrate Apple’s AI technologies into their own apps.
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The statement said: “After careful evaluation, Apple determined that Google’s Al technology provides the most capable foundation for Apple Foundation Models and is excited about the innovative new experiences it will unlock for Apple users.”
Analysts at Wedbush, the wealth-management and advisory firm, said: “This is … a major validation moment for Google as a premier foundation model and for Apple as a stepping stone to accelerate its AI strategy into 2026 and beyond.
“While the timeline to integrate into Siri is longer than we had expected, this was a necessary move for Apple to deliver its own personal assistant within its hardware ecosystem, while expecting to deliver a new subscription-based revenue stream to the largest consumer installed base in the world.”
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