🤝 Apple picks Gemini to power Siri

New data from Stanford HAI shows a big shift: China has taken the lead in open-weight models. In 2025, Chinese institutions pulled ahead of U.S. peers, with Alibaba’s Qwen models even overtaking Meta. Let’s dive in!

In today’s insights:

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS

Evolving AI: Apple will use Google’s Gemini models to power a new AI version of Siri, with the long delayed upgrade expected later this year.

Apple confirmed a multi year partnership with Google, saying Gemini provides the strongest base for its Apple Foundation Models. Siri is the first major product to use it, after Apple delayed its AI voice upgrade despite already promoting the feature. Apple says its privacy approach stays the same, with AI processing handled on device or through its own cloud systems. The move comes as Apple faces growing pressure from competitors that have invested heavily in AI. At the same time, Google has regained momentum with Gemini, landing large cloud deals and positioning itself as a core AI supplier even to longtime partners like Apple.

Apple and Google linking up on Siri is a pretty big tell about where AI is heading. The “best assistant” race is starting to look less like who owns the phone, and more like who has the strongest model stack behind the scenes, even if that stack comes from a rival. Apple still wants the privacy story, so it’s framing Gemini as something that runs on device or through Private Cloud Compute, not a full handoff of your life to Google. And for Google, getting Gemini inside Siri is a distribution win that puts it closer to everyday users while it’s already under antitrust scrutiny for the default search deal.

Connect your email, and you’ll instantly get a CRM with enriched customer insights and a platform that grows with your business.

With AI at the core, Attio lets you:

Join industry leaders like Granola, Taskrabbit, Flatfile and more.

👉Try Attio Pro for free

Evolving AI: Anthropic is expanding beyond developers with Cowork, a new agent tool that helps Claude handle everyday computer tasks directly on your Mac.

Cowork is built on the same foundation as Claude Code and lives inside the Claude macOS desktop app. Users can grant Claude access to a specific folder and ask it to complete tasks like sorting receipts, writing reports from notes, or cleaning up files. Similar workflows were already possible with Claude Code or MCP, but setup required technical knowledge. Cowork removes that friction and adds features like adjusting instructions while a task is still running. Anthropic says the tool exists because many users were already using Claude Code for general office work. Still, risks remain. Poorly written prompts could lead to file deletion, and prompt injection attacks are a known issue. For now, access is limited to a research preview.

Cowork is a clear move toward getting work done by talking to your computer instead of clicking through apps. Since the announcement, it has gone viral, even though it is still a research preview, which shows how ready people are for this kind of tool. It can read and act on real files, and that pushes AI from helping to actually doing. At the same time, once an AI can rename, move, or delete things, one bad prompt or a hidden prompt injection can cause real problems fast.

Evolving AI: The US military plans to plug Elon Musk’s AI tool Grok into Pentagon systems later this month.

US defense secretary Pete Hegseth said the Pentagon will begin integrating Grok into military networks later this month. The announcement was made at SpaceX headquarters, where he framed the move as part of a broader push to bring leading AI models into both unclassified and classified systems. Alongside Grok, the Department of Defense recently selected Google’s Gemini to power its internal AI platform, GenAI.mil. The Pentagon has also awarded contracts worth up to $200 million to Anthropic, Google, OpenAI, and xAI to develop agent-based AI workflows across military missions. At the same time, Grok has faced backlash over sexual and violent image generation, government bans in parts of Asia, and investigations in Europe, raising questions about oversight as it enters sensitive environments.

When the Pentagon starts wiring consumer grade frontier models like Gemini and now Grok into real unclassified and classified networks, it’s a signal that “AI in government” is moving from trials to day to day infrastructure. The bigger shift is that DoD wants a fast, multi model setup and is pushing data sharing across its systems to feed those models, which makes deployment speed the priority. At the same time, Grok is being investigated and even blocked in some countries over non consensual sexual imagery, so this becomes a live test of whether the US can scale powerful AI inside sensitive environments without repeating the mess we keep seeing on public platforms.

Your company going global shouldn’t mean endless headaches. Deel’s free guide shows you how to unify payroll, onboarding, and compliance across every country you operate in. No more juggling separate systems for the US, Europe, and APAC. No more Slack messages filling gaps. Just one consolidated approach that scales.

Get the free guide today

QUICK HITS

🤖 Slackbot, the automated assistant baked into the Salesforce-owned corporate messaging platform Slack, is entering a new era as an AI agent.

🛩️ Pentagon task force to deploy AI-powered UAS systems to capture drones.

🧬 Stanford researchers use AI to monitor rare cancer.

🏥 Anthropic announces Claude for Healthcare following OpenAI’s ChatGPT Health reveal.

🕺 Hyundai shows off K-pop dancing robot dogs and humanoid robot Atlas at CES.

💳 Google announces a new protocol to facilitate commerce using AI agents.

📄 OpenAI is reportedly asking contractors to upload real work from past jobs.

 *partner link