The news that Apple has been in negotiations with Google over bringing generative AI capabilities to iOS stunned the tech world this week. For a company with Apple’s vast resources and talent, the idea of outsourcing such a critical component of its next mobile operating system seems an unlikely path. But according to well-connected insider Mark Gurman, there are compelling reasons why Apple may be exploring this unorthodox partnership.

In his Power On newsletter for Bloomberg, Gurman lays out one tantalizing scenario: “Apple could probably get Google or someone else to pay it ungodly amounts of money for premium status in the operating system.” With Google angling to make its AI the preferred “generative AI service on both Apple and Android phones,” as Gurman speculates, the search giant may be motivated to back up the truck for Apple.

Beyond the potential windfall of having Google bankroll AI integration, Apple may also be hedging its bets on developing its own conversational AI assistant akin to ChatGPT. As Gurman posits, “Apple doesn’t feel strongly about AI chatbots but knows that consumers will yearn for one anyway.” Riding the coattails of an established player could expediently deliver the AI sizzle customers crave.

But the upsides for Apple may go beyond just subsidizing development costs or hurrying AI to market. With generative AI a veritable minefield of ethical and legal risks around biased outputs, data privacy violations and synthetic media misuse, offloading that responsibility to a third party could prove appealing. As Gurman frames it, a partnership “could help Apple integrate AI more quickly,” while having “someone else is paying those huge bills.”

Gurman notes the tech giants have tangled before when new ethical thickets arise, such as Apple steering users to Google’s AI transcription services for its Voice Control accessibility feature, allowing it to sidestep the privacy pitfalls.

With WWDC 2024 a few months away, all eyes are on whether Apple will make a shock AI partnership announcement during its annual developer keynote. Gurman confirms the company has held negotiations with other major players as well, including OpenAI and Anthropic. However, he claims “Google and Apple have held the most active talks.“

Yet a third path remains for the deliberately deliberate Apple: to go it alone on generative AI, at least for now. But Gurman cautions “that probably wouldn’t be a popular decision with either consumers or investors” given the white-hot emphasis on AI across the tech sphere.