Apple, Google go official for Siri revamp

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Good morning, {{ first_name | AI enthusiasts }}. The Siri AI saga finally has an answer — and it’s Google.

Apple just officially confirmed a multi-year deal, making Gemini the backbone of its AI strategy and handing a major win to one rival while suddenly making its high-profile ChatGPT partnership feel like an afterthought.

In today’s AI rundown:

  • Apple, Google go official for Siri’s revamp

  • Anthropic’s ‘Cowork’ for non-coding tasks

  • Exploring Perplexity’s Comet browser

  • Microsoft details growing AI adoption gap

  • 4 new AI tools, community workflows, and more

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS

GOOGLE & APPLE

📱 Apple, Google go official for Siri’s revamp

Image source: Nano Banana Pro / The Rundown

The Rundown: Apple and Google just officially announced a multi-year partnership that will use Gemini to power both Apple’s foundational AI models and the long-awaited Siri upgrade expected later this year.

The details:

  • The two tech giants published a joint statement confirming the deal, with Apple saying Gemini “provides the most capable foundation” for its AI.

  • Bloomberg first reported the potential deal in November, saying Apple was committing roughly $1B annually to license Google’s technology.

  • Apple told CNBC that its ChatGPT deal is still intact, while also confirming that its AI features will continue to run on-device and via Private Cloud Compute.

  • The announcement briefly pushed Google’s market cap above $4T for the first time, now trailing only Nvidia, Microsoft, and Apple itself.

Why it matters: After a year of rumblings over Siri’s direction, Apple is finally (officially) picking a lane — and one that is outsourcing Siri’s AI struggles to a major competitor. The deal is validation for Google’s massive Gemini rise, and also makes the arrangements with OpenAI a bit awkward, with its biggest rival powering Siri’s brain.

TOGETHER WITH YOU.COM

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  • A practical framework for measuring and proving AI’s business value

  • Four essential ways to calculate ROI, plus when and how to use each metric

  • A You.com-tested LLM prompt for building your own interactive ROI calculator

Turn “we think” into “we know.” Download the AI ROI Guide.

ANTHROPIC

🚀 Anthropic’s ‘Cowork’ for non-coding tasks

Image source: Anthropic

The Rundown: Anthropic just released Cowork, a new macOS tool that brings Claude Code’s agentic capabilities to everyday tasks like organizing files, building reports, and managing expenses.

The details:

  • The tool operates within a designated folder on your Mac, where Claude can autonomously organize, modify, and generate documents on a user’s behalf.

  • Third-party integrations with services like Asana and Notion are built in, along with optional browser control through the Chrome extension.

  • Users can assign several jobs at once and check back later — a workflow Anthropic compares to delegating to a colleague rather than a bot.

  • Cowork launches in research preview, available initially to Max tier users and exclusive to the platform’s macOS app for now.

Why it matters: Claude Code has become one of Anthropic’s breakout products, with users pushing it far beyond just coding — but the name/interface still might be intimidating to non-developers. Cowork brings the same approach to everyone, allowing a more general user base to leverage Claude’s strong agentic capabilities.

AI TRAINING

🌐 Exploring Perplexity’s Comet browser

The Rundown: In this tutorial, you will learn the basics of Comet, Perplexity’s new AI browser — covering what you can do with free vs. paid plans and previewing useful workflows like trip planning and AI-assisted shopping.

Step-by-step:

  1. Install the Comet desktop app here, then explore the sidebar for main browsing options — click Spaces → Templates → Trip Planner Pro

  2. Enter a prompt like “Plan me a trip from [starting city] to [destination city] on [dates]” — Perplexity will ask follow-ups or start researching/planning the trip

  3. Open a new tab, navigate to Amazon.com, then open Assistant with ⌥ + a or clicking the top right corner

  4. Prompt: “Find a computer mouse with 5k+ reviews averaging above 4.5 stars for under $60 and add it to my cart” — Perplexity then takes over your tab

Pro tip: To get the most out of Comet, set up Assistant, Connectors, and Purchases.

PRESENTED BY UNWRAP

⚡ Powerful insights for powerful brands

The Rundown: Unwrap aggregates all your customer feedback (surveys, reviews, support tickets, social, sales calls, etc.) into a single AI-powered view, helping product and CX teams at Southwest Airlines, Stripe, lululemon, and DoorDash cut through thousands of data points to ensure no customer voice gets lost.

With Unwrap, you get:

  • All customer feedback auto-categorized into a single view

  • Natural language queries to explore feedback instantly

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Grab time directly with the team to talk through how you can automate customer feedback analysis.

AI RESEARCH

📊 Microsoft details growing AI adoption gap

Image source: Microsoft AI Economy Institute

The Rundown: Microsoft’s AI Economy Institute released a new report showing global AI adoption reached 16.3% in late 2025, while also revealing a widening gap between wealthy and developing economies and quiet growth of DeepSeek model use.

The details:

  • The UAE leads at 64% adoption for the working-age population, while the U.S. dropped to 24th despite topping both global AI models and infrastructure.

  • The “Global North” developed nations adopted AI at nearly double the rate of developing economies, expanding to a 10.6% higher adoption rate.

  • DeepSeek gained major traction in underserved markets, with 2-4x higher usage in Africa, aided by Huawei partnerships and its free, open-source model.

Why it matters: It is pretty wild to see the U.S. at 24th despite its standing in both model development and AI infra buildout, but innovation and country-wide adoption are two very different challenges. The quiet rise of DeepSeek across underserved areas is also notable, with accessibility just as big a factor as capability for global adoption.

QUICK HITS

🛠️ Trending AI Tools

  • 🤝 Claude Cowork – Bring Claude’s agentic capabilities to everyday tasks

  • 🩺 ChatGPT Health – OpenAI’s new experience for private health convos

  • 📝 Manus Minutes – Turn in-person discussions into structured notes

  • 🏷️ Copilot Checkout – Complete purchases directly within Microsoft Copilot

📰 Everything else in AI today

OpenAI announced the acquisition of health data startup Torch, paying $100M in equity and acquiring the company’s four employees.

Anthropic launched Claude for Healthcare, expanding its AI assistant’s medical capabilities with HIPAA-compliant tools for orgs and connectors for medical platforms.

Nvidia and Eli Lilly are committing $1B for a joint co-innovation AI lab based in San Francisco, aiming to accelerate drug discovery and medical breakthroughs.

Manus rolled out Meeting Minutes, a new recording feature that captures in-person conversations and generates actionable summaries for creating follow-up work.

Axiom announced that its AxiomProver model hit a perfect score on the 2025 Putnam exam, hailed as the “world’s hardest college-level math test”.

COMMUNITY

🤝 Community AI workflows

Every newsletter, we showcase how a reader is using AI to work smarter, save time, or make life easier.

Today’s workflow comes from reader Van R. in Eunice, LA:

“As a Parish Administrator, I oversee infrastructure projects ranging from airports to drainage to debris removal. These projects require us to review Request for Qualifications from engineering firms, and some packets run hundreds of pages long.

I use Claude to pre-screen these proposals, scanning each submission against our criteria… The report scores each proposal, IDs areas of strength and concern, and lists references — giving us a solid foundation for our manual review when selecting a firm.”

How do you use AI? Tell us here.

🎓 Highlights: News, Guides & Events

See you soon,

Rowan, Joey, Zach, Shubham, and Jennifer — the humans behind The Rundown

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