While Apple is busy integrating Siri and ChatGPT as part of its Apple Intelligence initiative, Google is opening up its AI chatbot to iPhone users with a standalone app for Gemini Live.
Google's Gemini has been available in the main Google app for several months, but casual users could easily miss it unless they were serious Google fans. The new Google Gemini app not only puts Google's AI assistant front and center but also delivers its Android counterpart's cleaner interface and unlocks Gemini Live.
Gemini Live is a more interactive and conversational chatbot intended to work more like a real-life assistant -- effectively what Apple is trying to turn Siri into with Apple Intelligence. You'll be able to speak to Gemini more naturally and even interrupt it to ask questions or change the topic.
Google naturally debuted it as the default assistant on its new Pixel 9 phones in August, replacing the traditional Google Assistant, and it was also limited to Gemini Advanced subscribers during the initial rollout. However, Google promised from the start that it would eventually come to all Android and iOS devices and be available to free users, not only paying subscribers.
Google delivered on the first part of that promise in September, and today, it turned the key for iPhone users with the new standalone Gemini app. In addition to the conversational Gemini Live chatbot, you'll find all the other Gemini features here, including the Imagen 3 AI image generator and Gemini Extensions to help you pull in your data from first-party Google services like Gmail, Calendar, Google Maps, and even YouTube. Conversation history is available in the app and synced between devices and Gemini on the web.
While Gemini Live won't be able to replace Siri, Google has taken steps to make it easier to access for those who want to try and use it as a default voice assistant. There's a Live Activity on the Home Screen and in the Dynamic Island to let you call it up regardless of which app you're using or even from the Lock Screen.
That's still not as seamless as using Siri, of course. Unlike ChatGPT, the Gemini app doesn't appear to support Siri Shortcuts yet, so it's not even easy to call it up with Siri through a secondary prompt or an iOS 18 Vocal Shortcut.
Thanks to Apple's partnership with ChatGPT, it will soon be possible for folks with Apple Intelligence-capable devices to make requests to ChatGPT directly through Siri. While the fully revamped Siri is still a few months away, December's iOS 18.2 release will integrate Apple's voice assistant with ChatGPT. This will automatically offer to send any requests that Siri can't handle over to OpenAI's chatbot, and users can also force it by prefixing Siri requests with "Ask ChatGPT" -- even if they don't have the ChatGPT app installed and haven't set up an account. Once a ChatGPT conversation has started, Siri will continue listening to follow-up questions, providing a natural conversational flow similar to what Gemini offers.
However, Gemini Live's integration with Gmail and Calendar will offer more advanced features for those in Google's ecosystem, similar to what Apple has promised when its full Siri improvements arrive next year. For example, Google says that the Calendar extension will allow you to do things like "snap a photo of a concert flier and ask Gemini if you're free that day" and then "even set a reminder to buy tickets."
Apple's partnership with OpenAI for Apple Intelligence isn't necessarily exclusive. ChatGPT is the only service on board for now, but Apple has reportedly held talks with Google about incorporating Gemini. When Apple's software chief, Craig Federighi, unveiled Apple Intelligence during the company's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), he clarified that Apple also plans "to add support for other AI models in the future." This means it's possible some form of Gemini could eventually be baked into iOS the same way ChatGPT is.