3:28 PM PST · February 4, 2026
Alphabet declined to reply 1 of its investors buring questions astir Google’s AI woody pinch Apple connected Wednesday’s fourth-quarter net call. Instead of responding to an analyst’s mobility astir really nan tech elephantine is reasoning astir AI partnerships, specified arsenic nan 1 pinch Apple to powerfulness AI for Siri, nan mobility was wholly ignored.
That determination tells america something, though — Alphabet isn’t fresh to talk astir really this business will effect its halfway business, which is progressively focused connected AI.
Over nan years, nan Google-Apple narration has been mutually beneficial. The 2 companies’ hunt business saw nan hunt elephantine paying nan iPhone shaper $20 billion to beryllium nan default hunt motor connected Apple devices, filings from nan Department of Justice’s suit against nan hunt elephantine had revealed. In turn, Google gained entree to Apple’s monolithic customer guidelines — nan 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 costs Apple astir $1 cardinal per year, but nan payoff beyond that for Google isn’t arsenic instantly evident arsenic it is pinch search. In Google Search, consumers spot links to advertisers’ websites astatine nan apical of their hunt results. Ads successful AI Mode, which could 1 time correspond nan early of Google’s hunt business, are still an “experiment” for now.
The institution first announced past May that it would bring ads to AI Mode, nan chatbot-style interface for Google Search, but these tests spot nan ads’ placement beneath aliases integrated into nan chatbot’s responses. Google is besides trying retired agentic shopping, including Shop pinch AI Mode, to guideline consumers pinch product-related queries to a seamless checkout acquisition from nan AI interface.
Meanwhile, Google’s AI competitor Anthropic is taking purpose astatine ad-supported AI pinch its forthcoming Super Bowl ad, which challenges nan business exemplary being adopted by ChatGPT shaper OpenAI and Google.
How this will each play retired longer-term is still an unfastened mobility — and for today, an unanswered one, apparently.
Overall, nan Apple Siri woody hardly received immoderate mention during Alphabet’s net connected Wednesday. Pichai only noted he was pleased that Apple’s “preferred unreality provider” and would beryllium helping to create “the adjacent procreation of Apple instauration models based connected Gemini technology.” Google’s Chief Business Officer, Philipp Schindler, utilized nan nonstop aforesaid wording erstwhile mentioning Apple, arsenic well.
Sarah has worked arsenic a newsman for TechCrunch since August 2011. She joined nan institution aft having antecedently spent complete 3 years astatine ReadWriteWeb. Prior to her activity arsenic a reporter, Sarah worked successful I.T. crossed a number of industries, including banking, unit and software.
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