Apple aims to turn Siri into a second App Store — who wins and who loses?

What Apple is building

Apple (苹果) is reportedly preparing to open Siri to third‑party AI chatbots via a new iOS 27 "Extensions" system, effectively turning Siri into a distribution platform for external AI services. The move follows a dual strategy: it has been reported that Apple is rebuilding Siri's core intelligence on Google’s Gemini while simultaneously letting apps such as Gemini, Anthropic’s Claude and Perplexity plug into Siri through the App Store. Short version: Apple rebuilds the brain and opens the mouth.

Why the pivot happened

The change helps explain earlier stumbles. Apple Intelligence, announced at WWDC 2024, promised a stack of small local models plus a single cloud partner for harder queries. But local and in‑cloud models lagged GPT‑4‑class capabilities; key AI hires left, and it has been reported that Apple struck a roughly $1 billion‑a‑year deal to leverage Google’s Gemini (a model reportedly with ~1.2 trillion parameters) to shore up Siri’s backend. Those reports also say Apple’s internal “bake‑offs” weighed price and infrastructure maturity as heavily as raw model performance when choosing a partner.

Winners and losers

Google is an obvious winner: it gains rare dual leverage as both Siri’s foundational supplier and a direct Extensions app on iOS. Startups such as Anthropic and Perplexity are also beneficiaries — Extensions gives them iOS distribution without bespoke platform agreements. Domestic Chinese players with strong models but weak distribution may likewise gain new access, while major Chinese distributors such as Tencent (腾讯) could see their gatekeeping role weakened. Meanwhile Apple likely keeps the economics of the App Store model: it has been reported that any AI subscriptions routed via Siri could remain subject to the familiar 15–30% cut.

Why this matters geopolitically and commercially

This is not just a product decision. The arrangement concentrates critical AI infrastructure among a few U.S. cloud and model providers, raising questions about market power, regulatory antitrust scrutiny and data flows — especially in cross‑border contexts where trade and security policies already complicate cloud relationships. Will regulators accept a platform that monetizes access to third‑party AI inside a branded assistant? And will developers and users prefer to pick the smartest back end, or the one that’s easiest to reach? Apple’s bet is pragmatic: it may not need to win the model war if it can win the billing. The next milestones to watch are iOS 27’s rollout, developer uptake of Extensions, and what regulators decide.