A significant rift has emerged in the narrative surrounding the Apple-Google AI partnership. During Alphabet’s Q4 2025 earnings call on February 4, 2026, CEO Sundar Pichai and CBO Philipp Schindler repeatedly referred to Google as Apple’s “preferred cloud provider.” This statement directly challenges Apple’s long-standing promise that Siri’s AI processing would stay within its own encrypted “Private Cloud Compute” (PCC).
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The “Preferred” Partner: Google’s Bold Earnings Claim
Alphabet executives weren’t shy about their new alliance. Pichai confirmed that Google is collaborating with Apple to develop the “next generation of Apple Foundation Models” based on Gemini technology. Consequently, industry analysts believe this goes beyond a simple software license.
While Apple previously used OpenAI for a “sidecar” ChatGPT experience, the Google deal is structural. Schindler noted that Google is pleased to be the “preferred cloud provider,” suggesting that Google’s Tensor Processing Units (TPUs) will do the heavy lifting for Siri’s complex reasoning tasks. This potentially marks the first time Apple has outsourced core OS intelligence to a direct rival’s infrastructure.
Apple’s Hybrid Stance: Privacy vs. Performance
Earlier this month, Tim Cook attempted to manage expectations by stating that Apple Intelligence would “continue to run on the device and run in Private Cloud Compute.” Apple’s PCC is designed to be a “stateless” server environment where data is never stored or accessible to Apple employees.
However, the “preferred cloud partner” label suggests a different tier of service. In fact, if the next-gen Siri requires the massive scale of Gemini 3 Ultra, Apple’s current M5-based server racks may not be enough. Therefore, Apple might be forced to route “agentic” tasks—like booking a trip or cross-referencing emails—directly to Google Cloud.
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The Siri Roadmap: iOS 26.4 to iOS 27
Reports from Mark Gurman indicate a two-step rollout for the revamped assistant:
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Phase 1 (iOS 26.4): Arriving in late February 2026. This version will use “Apple Foundation Models Version 10” (based on Gemini). It will likely handle onscreen awareness and simple multi-step tasks using Apple’s Private Cloud.
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Phase 2 (iOS 27): Expected for a WWDC 2026 reveal. This is the “Conversational Siri” rebuilt from scratch. This version is rumored to run on Google’s own servers to achieve parity with the latest standalone chatbots.
Reality Check: The End of Apple’s Privacy Purity?
The official narrative from Cupertino still beats the “Privacy” drum, but the Google partnership is a massive concession. In fact, Apple is retreating from building its own frontier AI infrastructure. By labeling Google as a “preferred cloud provider,” Apple is admitting that its internal “Apple GPT” projects failed to meet the bar. Still, the privacy risk is real: even with “stateless” processing, routing Siri queries through Google Cloud creates a metadata trail that Apple has historically fought to avoid.
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The Loopholes: How Google Might Access Siri Data
Even with Apple’s strict protocols, several “grey areas” could allow data leakage:
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Model Training: While Apple says data isn’t used for training, the “technical checkpoints” shared between Google and Apple engineers could reveal user interaction patterns.
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TPU Telemetry: If Siri runs on Google’s TPUs, system-level logs regarding processing load and query types could give Google deep insights into iPhone usage.
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The “Hand-off” Delay: Complex queries that fail on-device are sent to the cloud. The more Siri fails locally, the more data flows to Google.
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What This Means for You
As an iPhone user, you are about to get a significantly smarter Siri that can finally “do things” inside your apps. However, you should be aware that the “privacy” of these interactions is now a collaborative effort between Apple and Google. Therefore, if you are handling highly sensitive corporate data, you may want to review the Apple Intelligence toggle in your settings once iOS 26.4 drops.
Next Steps
Keep an eye out for the iOS 26.4 beta release expected in the third week of February. You should also look for Apple’s updated “Security White Paper,” which must explain how Google Cloud fits into the Private Cloud Compute framework. Finally, stay tuned for WWDC 2026, where the “full” chatbot version of Siri will likely be unveiled.
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