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WWDC 2026: Is Siri Actually Good Now?
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How Apple Trains Siri: Five Models and the Gemini Deal
At 1:25:30 · chapter starts 1:19:40
David breaks down the architecture behind Siri AI's five foundation models: AFM 3 Core (3B parameters, handles simple on-device tasks like timers), AFM 3 Core Advanced (20B parameters using mixture-of-experts, restricted to iPhone Pro and Air with 12GB RAM), plus three private cloud compute models for heavier workloads including AFM 3 Cloud Pro, which specifically uses Google Cloud infrastructure and NVIDIA GPUs. The most surprising detail: Apple is not deploying Gemini directly. Instead, it licenses a 1.2 trillion parameter Gemini model for approximately $1 billion per year to 'teach' its own foundation models — a distillation strategy. Marques unpacks the analogy: if a car company hired a rival to teach them how to build cars using their own materials, the resulting vehicle would walk and talk like the teacher's car but be technically proprietary. Meanwhile, Google pays Apple ~$19 billion per year to be the default search engine, creating an extraordinary mutual financial dependency at the heart of the AI race.
Apple isn't using Gemini directly in Siri. Instead, it's paying Google roughly $1 billion per year to license a 1.2 trillion parameter Gemini model as a teacher to distill knowledge into Apple's own foundation models. The models Apple ships are technically Apple's own — but they learned from Gemini.
Apple is reportedly licensing a 1.2 trillion parameter Gemini model from Google for approximately $1 billion per year to use as a teacher for its own Apple Foundation Models.
Apple reportedly receives approximately $19 billion per year from Google to be the default search engine on iPhones, while simultaneously paying Google ~$1 billion per year for Gemini model access.
Apple's new Siri AI is powered by 5 distinct foundation models — 2 on-device and 3 private cloud compute — ranging from 3 billion to 20 billion parameters.
The new Siri AI launches in English only and is unavailable on iPhone in the EU or China due to DMA regulations, though Mac users in the EU can access it.
