Apple confirmed at WWDC that its Foundation Models aren't a cut and paste of Gemini, and are all-Apple through-and-through. We've been telling you this all along.
WWDC 2026 was a rollercoaster event that primarily focused on Apple's latest AI upgrades. This time, though, they had a little help from Google.
Apple pre-announced that Google was providing Gemini technology to help develop the new Apple Foundation Models, but didn't say much else. The rampant speculation painted a portrait of scrambling and failure, as usual.
The reality is exactly what AppleInsider has been reporting all along, which makes sense. All of the information was there if you were willing to see it for what it was.
Simply, it's this:
The upgraded Apple Foundation Models power a new Siri AI and Apple Intelligence that utilize private, safe, and secure on-device and Private Cloud Compute server-side operation. The new models were built with the aid of Google Gemini and its technologies, but through distillation and training, not full replacement.
Apple has confirmed the end result is pure Apple technology and code. When you interact with Apple Foundation Models, you never touch a drop of Google code, Gemini agents, or even Google Search.
It's Apple software all the way down.
Apple's new models
A short talk was held with a few Apple executives after the main WWDC 2026 keynote. Apple SVP of Software Engineering, Craig Federighi, was joined by Sebastien Marineau-Mes, Mike Rockwell, and Amar Subramanya on stage to discuss the new Apple Foundation Models (AFM).
Apple's executive gaggle at WWDC
Here's what was shared:
The on-device models are AFM Core and AFM Core Advanced. The advanced version is natively multi-modal with a sparse architecture that enables more capable features without leaving your device.
AFM Cloud is the Private Cloud Compute base model that handles more taxing AI requests that can't be run on-device. The AFM Cloud Image model is for image generation and editing.
Each of these four models is custom-built for Apple Silicon, trained using proprietary data, and further polished with distillation from the loaned Gemini models.
Then there's AFM Cloud Pro that will be used for agentic tools and the most demanding tasks. It is going to use infrastructure provided by Google's cloud servers and NVIDIA's GPUs while remaining Private Cloud Compute certified.
Third parties can review the servers used by Apple to independently verify Private Cloud Compute certification. Basically, this means external entities can prove whether Apple is keeping or mishandling user data in its AI servers.
What the rumors got wrong
Apple did flub its initial Apple Intelligence rollout. It overpromised on features that would never be able to perform as expected due to AI hallucination rates and Siri's ML-based backend.
iPhone 17 Pro Max will benefit from Apple's most powerful models
That slow launch and delay in early 2025 led people to believe Apple would never be able to deliver "good AI." Meanwhile, the world saw the grift grow as other companies promised world-changing or world-ending features that amounted to slop generators and nudify apps.
As AI sentiment waned, Apple powered through and had one record-breaking quarter after another without a strong AI offering. Even so, pundits claimed Apple's next AI announcement would inevitably be a whiff unless they gave up and relied on someone else's models.
They seemingly got their wish when Apple shared that it was partnering with Google to utilize Gemini technologies as the foundation of Apple Foundation Models. The pundits saw what they wanted to see and ran with it — Apple had given up and Apple Intelligence would now be Gemini.
Whether they called it "white label Gemini" or suggested Gemini agents would operate alongside Apple's weaker models, they universally couldn't imagine a world where Apple simply didn't use Google in its AI revamp. Obviously, they were wrong.
Apple and Google may have been deliberately opaque in their press release around this partnership. One thing was clear, though.
Apple clearly said at the time that Siri and Apple Intelligence would be powered by Apple Foundation Models.
And on Monday, June 8, they exposed exactly that.
