The ‘Glenwood’ Project: How Apple Is Using Google to Fix Siri

Apple’s secret “Glenwood” project, the internal effort to fix Siri, is turning to an unlikely source: Google. Apple has agreed to a $1 billion annual deal to use Google’s 1.2 trillion parameter Gemini AI as an “interim solution” for its next-generation assistant.

The new Siri, codenamed “Linwood,” will be a hybrid system. It will use Google’s “ultrapowerful” AI for heavy lifting, specifically the “summariser” and “planner” functions that require deep understanding and multi-step execution. This is a massive upgrade from Apple’s 150-billion parameter models.

The decision came after an exhaustive “bake-off” where Gemini outperformed offerings from OpenAI and Anthropic. For Apple, it’s a reluctant admission of its AI lag, but a necessary step to make Siri competitive.

For Google, this is a major victory, positioning it as a dominant “AI supplier” in the industry, even to its main rival. Other companies like Snap are also building on Google’s Vertex AI platform.

Privacy is the deal’s critical component. Overseen by executives Craig Federighi and Mike Rockwell, the project will see the Gemini model hosted on Apple’s Private Cloud Compute. This “walled-off” setup guarantees Google cannot access any user data.