If you want to win at AI – and I mean win in the biggest, most profitable, most world-shaping way in your image – you have to do several complex things at once. You need to have a model that will undoubtedly be one of the best on the market. You need almost infinite resources to continue to refine this model and implement it on a massive scale. You need at least one AI-powered product that many people utilize, and preferably more than one. You need access to as much other user data as possible – their personal data, online activity, even the files on their computer.
Each of these elements is intricate and competitive; there’s a reason why OpenAI CEO Sam Altman keeps shouting that he needs trillions of dollars for computation alone. But Google is the only company that seems to have all the pieces in order already. Over the past year, and even in the past few days, the company has taken actions that suggest it is poised to become the largest and most influential force in artificial intelligence.
A lot of necessary infrastructure work was carried out last year. In November, Google released Gemini 3, which is widely considered to be the best overall multilingual model on the market. It wins in most (somewhat questionable) benchmarks, and most experts agree that it’s at or near the top of the list for most tasks. Of course, his reign won’t last forever – we’re still in the “new best model comes out every six weeks” phase of artificial intelligence, but Google has proven that its best work is consistently the best in the industry.
One crucial factor in Gemini 3’s case was the way it was trained: using Google’s own TPU, a highly specialized chip that the company had been building for years for this very purpose. Google is certainly susceptible to some manufacturing issues and RAM price increases like everyone else, but unlike almost all of its competitors it is not dependent on Nvidia’s supply chain. Google is able to optimize its entire system to make it better, faster and cheaper. No one else has such complete control over the fate of artificial intelligence.
So what do you do when you have the right technology? Share it with people and start taking action. On Monday, Google and Apple announced that Gemini will power the next-generation Siri, which will arrive later this year. This is a gigantic win for Apple, which is reportedly paying $1 billion a year in hopes of turning Siri into an AI assistant that will actually make a difference.
Siri is immediately becoming one of the most popular ways for people to interact with Gemini
For Google, it is equally crucial. Apple’s statement “it’s the best technology available” is obviously a mighty signal to the market, but more than that, Siri is immediately becoming one of the most popular ways for people to interact with Gemini. Craig Federighi of Apple he said in 2024 that Siri processes “around 1.5 billion requests per day,” and while we don’t know the exact details of the novel deal, it’s likely a huge percentage of them will go through Gemini soon. (Hopefully “set a timer” – the only thing Siri still does well is that it won’t get a novel and more complicated backend.) Compare that to ChatGPT, which Altman said last year receives 2.5 billion suggestions a day. The Gemini app is growing rapidly, although it still lags far behind ChatGPT, but adding Siri to the mix will aid Google catch up faster.
A technology deal is obviously not the same as Gemini completely usurping Siri, and Google would certainly like Siri to ask Gemini pun questions like it currently does with ChatGPT. But the deal still matters because every user counts: the more user activity and data these companies can collect, the better their models and products can become. A recent search effort looked in part at this particular flywheel, and it also applies to artificial intelligence.
Google’s other announcement this week is an even bigger deal. An optional feature called “Personal Intelligence” was announced, which connects Gemini to the immense ocean of information Google has about you to provide you with better answers. Whenever you ask a question, Gemini can now answer by viewing your recent searches, YouTube videos, emails, photos, files, and more. It really can’t be overstated how gigantic of a deal this is: Google no longer has to ask you for broad context, hope you provide perfect and detailed suggestions every time, or create intricate, custom instruction systems. Google already knows a terrifying amount about you, and now Gemini knows it too.
Right now, Personal Intelligence is in beta for a subset of paying AI customers. Ultimately, Google plans to make this service available to everyone, everywhere. He also plans to introduce it to Google’s most crucial product, the most popular website in the world: its search engine. AI mode in search is just a tab on the side of general search results for now, but Google very clearly sees it as the future of search. He also wants to turn Gemini into a portal that contains all of Google’s data about you, the Internet and the world.
In 2022, when ChatGPT launched, it was clear that Google had been caught inactive. But credit where it’s due: For a company not exactly known for its ability to focus on a coherent product strategy, Google has managed to marshal significant resources in one direction. If chatbots are indeed the future – and much of the AI industry still says they are – there is simply no other company today that can truly compete with Google. Google has models. He has the resources to improve them. It now has the distribution necessary to encourage people to utilize bots, and the data required to make them uniquely personal and useful. At least for now, ChatGPT has brand strength and daily lively users. But Google has almost everything else. Even iPhone.