Alphabet won’t talk about the Google-Apple AI deal, even to investors

Alphabet declined to reply 1 of its investors buring questions astir Google’s AI woody with Apple connected Wednesday’s fourth-quarter net call. Instead of responding to an analyst’s question astir however the tech elephantine is reasoning astir AI partnerships, specified arsenic the 1 with Apple to powerfulness AI for Siri, the question was wholly ignored.

That determination tells america something, though — Alphabet isn’t acceptable to speech astir however this concern volition interaction its halfway business, which is progressively focused connected AI.

Over the years, the Google-Apple narration has been mutually beneficial. The 2 companies’ hunt concern saw the hunt elephantine paying the iPhone shaper $20 billion to beryllium the default hunt motor connected Apple devices, filings from the Department of Justice’s suit against the hunt elephantine had revealed. In turn, Google gained entree to Apple’s monolithic lawsuit basal — the iPhone shaper past 4th announced it has 2.5 cardinal progressive devices worldwide to springiness you an thought of scale.

The latest Apple AI woody is rumored to outgo Apple astir $1 cardinal per year, but the payoff beyond that for Google isn’t arsenic instantly evident arsenic it is with search. In Google Search, consumers spot links to advertisers’ websites astatine the apical of their hunt results. Ads successful AI Mode, which could 1 time correspond the aboriginal of Google’s hunt business, are inactive an “experiment” for now.

The institution archetypal announced past May that it would bring ads to AI Mode, the chatbot-style interface for Google Search, but these tests spot the ads’ placement beneath oregon integrated into the chatbot’s responses. Google is besides trying retired agentic shopping, including Shop with AI Mode, to usher consumers with product-related queries to a seamless checkout acquisition from the AI interface.

Meanwhile, Google’s AI rival Anthropic is taking purpose astatine ad-supported AI with its forthcoming Super Bowl ad, which challenges the concern exemplary being adopted by ChatGPT shaper OpenAI and Google.

How this volition each play retired longer-term is inactive an unfastened question — and for today, an unanswered one, apparently.

Overall, the Apple Siri woody hardly received immoderate notation during Alphabet’s net connected Wednesday. Pichai lone noted helium was pleased that Apple’s “preferred unreality provider” and would beryllium helping to make “the adjacent procreation of Apple instauration models based connected Gemini technology.” Google’s Chief Business Officer, Philipp Schindler, utilized the nonstop aforesaid wording erstwhile mentioning Apple, arsenic well.