The Samsung Play: 800 Million Devices
While Apple’s announcement captured headlines, Samsung’s is arguably the larger deployment story.
Samsung already uses Google’s Gemini models in Galaxy AI features — Circle to Search, Live Translate, Generative Edit in the camera app. But the company’s new target is to embed Gemini capabilities into every tier of its device lineup, including mid-range Galaxy A series phones that sell for under $300.
To put that in perspective: Samsung ships roughly 230 million phones per year. The 800 million target is cumulative across devices in use — meaning Gemini will be the default AI on hundreds of millions of devices that have never run a frontier model before.
The Galaxy AI features rolling out in 2026 include:
- Gemini Assistant integration — replacing Samsung’s older Bixby routines with Gemini-powered task automation
- AI-powered camera understanding — recognizing scenes, suggesting edits, and providing contextual information about photos
- Cross-app intelligence — Gemini can see across apps on Samsung devices, similar to Apple’s on-screen awareness
- Real-time language translation — enhanced with Gemini’s multilingual capabilities, supporting 100+ languages
For Samsung, this is also a Bixby exit strategy. Bixby never caught up to Google Assistant or Siri in user satisfaction, and the company clearly decided that competing on AI assistant quality wasn’t worth the investment when Google would do it better for them.
What This Means for Google
This is a landmark moment for Alphabet’s AI strategy. Google’s approach to Gemini has always been distribution-first — get the model onto as many surfaces as possible rather than building a premium standalone product the way OpenAI did with ChatGPT.
The Apple and Samsung deals validate that bet. By 2027, Gemini will be the default AI on:
- All Apple devices (via the new Siri)
- The majority of Android devices (via Samsung and the wider Android ecosystem)
- Google’s own products (Search, Workspace, Chrome, YouTube)
That’s a distribution footprint no other AI company can match. Even if OpenAI’s GPT-5.4 or Anthropic’s Claude Opus outperform Gemini on benchmarks, neither is positioned to become the default AI for billions of users across both major mobile platforms.
The financial implications are significant too. These device partnerships are likely revenue-generating for Google — similar to its existing deal where Google pays Apple approximately $18-20 billion per year to be the default search engine on Safari. The AI equivalent of that deal could be worth considerably more as AI inference costs drop and usage scales.
What This Means for iPhone Users
If you’re an iPhone user, here’s what to expect.
Short Term (2026)
The rebuilt Siri starts rolling out with iOS 20. Early access beta users report dramatically better performance on complex multi-step requests. The “Siri is dumb” meme is reportedly dead — early reviewers say it’s genuinely competitive with direct Gemini usage via the app.
Medium Term (2026-2027)
On-screen awareness expands to more apps. Third-party developers get APIs to integrate Siri’s new capabilities, similar to how developers can use on-device ML today. Expect a wave of app updates that surface Gemini-powered features through Siri shortcuts.
Privacy Considerations
Apple’s private cloud compute layer means most Gemini queries don’t go to Google’s servers in a traditional sense — they’re processed through Apple’s infrastructure with encryption and zero-retention. Apple has published documentation on the architecture for independent verification. That said, complex queries do touch Google’s model infrastructure at some point in the pipeline, which is worth understanding before assuming complete data isolation.
What This Means for OpenAI and Anthropic
Neither company is named in these deals, and that matters strategically.
OpenAI had a deal with Apple in 2025 to integrate ChatGPT into Siri for complex queries — but this was always framed as a temporary arrangement while Apple developed its long-term AI strategy. The Gemini deal appears to be that long-term strategy.
For OpenAI, losing the iPhone as a default AI surface is significant. The company has responded by doubling down on ChatGPT’s own app ecosystem, the voice interface, and enterprise sales. But the consumer mindshare battle for “what AI is on my phone” is looking increasingly like Google’s to win.
Anthropic’s Claude, meanwhile, has focused less on consumer device integration and more on developer tools (Claude Code, the API) and enterprise contracts. The device layer has never been their primary battleground, so the Apple-Google deal doesn’t directly threaten their roadmap — but it does reinforce that the mass-market consumer AI war is being fought between Google and OpenAI, with Anthropic as the B2B specialist.
The Bigger Picture: Device AI Is the Next Platform
The Apple-Samsung-Gemini convergence isn’t just a product story. It’s a platform story.
The shift from “AI as a cloud app you open” to “AI as a layer built into your device” represents the same transition that happened when the internet moved from desktop websites to native mobile apps. The companies that owned the native layer — Apple and Google — captured enormous value. The same dynamic is playing out now with AI.
By embedding AI at the OS level, Apple and Samsung are making their devices genuinely smarter, not just giving users a gateway to external AI services. Apps that don’t integrate with on-device AI will feel dated within two years — the same way apps that ignored push notifications, GPS, or cameras felt dated in the early smartphone era.
For developers, this means the next wave of app differentiation will be AI-native features powered by on-device models. For users, it means AI stops feeling like a separate tool you have to consciously use and starts feeling like a feature of your device that’s simply there.
People Also Ask
Will the new Siri replace ChatGPT on iPhone?
The rebuilt Siri powered by Gemini handles the vast majority of AI tasks on-device. The previous ChatGPT integration (for complex queries that Siri couldn’t handle) may remain in some capacity, but the need to hand off to ChatGPT should be much rarer with Gemini’s capabilities. For power users who want ChatGPT’s specific features, the standalone app still exists.
Does Apple’s Gemini deal mean my data goes to Google?
Apple has designed the architecture so that most queries are processed through Private Cloud Compute with zero-retention guarantees. Complex queries that require Gemini’s full capabilities do interact with Google’s infrastructure, but under a custom data agreement. Apple’s documentation describes it as “no persistent identifiers, no training on your data.” The full details are available in Apple’s privacy documentation for those who want to verify.
What happens to Bixby with Samsung’s Gemini expansion?
Samsung hasn’t officially killed Bixby, but the functional replacement is underway. Galaxy AI powered by Gemini handles the core assistant capabilities. Bixby remains as a name and brand for device-specific routines but loses its AI differentiation role.
Final Thoughts
The Apple-Gemini partnership and Samsung’s 800-million-device ambition represent the most significant shift in the AI landscape since ChatGPT launched. Not because the models are dramatically better (though the new Siri reportedly is), but because AI just became infrastructure — built into the devices that 2 billion people use every day, by default, with no opt-in required.
The AI tools race isn’t just between ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini.com anymore. It’s a race to own the layer where users naturally interact with AI. Google just took a massive lead on that front.
If you’re building on AI — whether that’s products, workflows, or content — the device-layer shift is worth paying close attention to. The next generation of AI-native apps won’t ask users to open a chat window. They’ll be woven into everything users are already doing.
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