Alphabet Remains Cautious On Apple Deal, Dodges Investor Question
The long-term mutually beneficial relationship has seen the search giant paying the iPhone maker $20 billion to be the default search engine on its devices.
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During its fourth-quarter earnings call on Wednesday, Alphabet steered clear of discussing its AI partnership with Apple—particularly how it will power AI features for next-generation Siri.
Its silent response to an investor question on how the Apple partnership could influence its core business speaks volumes about the parent company’s caution.
The long-term mutually beneficial relationship has seen the search giant paying the iPhone maker $20 billion to be the default search engine on its devices. This, in turn, led Google to gain access to Apple’s customer base of 2.5 billion active devices globally as of last quarter.
While the AI deal is rumoured to cost Apple about $1 billion annually, Google’s direct payoff is less, as the search.
With Google Search, the company could push advertisers’ websites to the top of search results for consumers. However, the ads in AI mode are still in the “experimental” stage as of now.
First announced in May 2025, Google has been gradually rolling out ads in AI Mode, placing them below or integrated into the chat. It is also testing agentic shopping features, including Shop with AI Mode, to help consumers navigate product-related queries.
With newer players gaining momentum, the next big thing is cracking the code of AI-chatbot marketing.
AI competitor Anthropic recently called out rival OpenAI in its Super Bowl ad for its recent decision to start showing ads within its ChatGPT chatbot.
OpenAI announced in January that it would test ads with its free users and ChatGPT Go subscribers in the US and said they would not influence the chatbot’s responses.
The startup maintains its stance on keeping its chatbot, Claude, ad-free.
“Our business model is straightforward: we generate revenue through enterprise contracts and paid subscriptions, and we reinvest that revenue into improving Claude for our users,” Anthropic said in its recent blog post. “This is a choice with tradeoffs, and we respect that other AI companies might reasonably reach different conclusions.”
With the Apple-Siri deal receiving barely any mention on Wednesday, Alphabet is treading carefully. “I’m pleased that we are collaborating with Apple as their preferred Cloud provider and to develop the next generation of Apple Foundation Models, based on Gemini technology,” said Sundar Pichai—marking the iPhone maker’s only mention during the call.
