(Preview) Five Questions on WWDC 2026, Fable 5 And Its Guardrails, What Anthropic Has in Common With Apple

Ben and Andrew begin by talking through five questions on WWDC in 2026, including thoughts on Apple’s answer to the critics, whether Apple is or is not thinking different, decoding the Google partnership and Craig Federighi’s corporate speak, the wide gap between Siri AI and frontier AI, and why memory concerns are misplaced. From there: Explaining the Fable 5 guard rails, Anthropic safety concerns that align with Anthropic business incentives, Ben’s first impressions of the Fable 5 performance, and a week of Anthropic angst that adds additional context to the company’s standoff with the Department of War. At the end: Passing another checkpoint on the AI 2027 journey, Microsoft on the hot seat in the AI era, and the United States of YouTube.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Andrew Sharp?

  Hello and welcome to a free preview of Sharp Tech.

• 0:08Andrew Sharp?

  Hello and welcome back to another episode of Sharp Tech. I'm Andrew Sharp and on the other line, Ben Thompson. Ben, how you doing?

• 0:20Ben Thompson?

  Well, I was, I think at some point, might've been the first half, early in the second half, thinking about our Sharp Tech Knicks emailer and just like coming in hot.

• 0:31Andrew Sharp?

  He did it to himself.

• 0:32Ben Thompson?

  Too early, telling if it was too early, thinking about how funny it was gonna be when it all fell apart. And then, I'm still not entirely sure what happened.

• 0:43Andrew Sharp?

  I mean, I still can't believe what happened. I was thinking of a GOAT emailer, Cameron in Australia, who emailed me and Golliver like a month ago, asking whether he should buy tickets to the NBA Finals and fly to New York City from Sydney, Australia. And I recommended at the time, do it. Life is short. Yeah, it's gonna be crazy expensive, but if this is a bucket list item, this is your opportunity. Who knows when the Knicks will be back here? Just make the move. And then he did it and he spent god knows how much on tickets to game three and game four. And I was sitting there, they lost game three and watching game four down 30 at halftime,

• 1:28Andrew Sharp?

  feeling really guilty that I was encouraging Cameron to go to the game. And then it turned into probably the most unforgettable game of his life and any of our lives. So here we are.

• 1:39Ben Thompson?

  There's no dollar figure that could have made it feel too expensive after last night.

• 1:43Andrew Sharp?

  Oh my god, I'm so happy for him.

• 1:45Ben Thompson?

  You messaged as such about how worried you were about him. And I think you messaged it exactly at the nadir. I think they were down 29 and the game turned thanks to your care.

• 1:55Andrew Sharp?

  The tide was turned. Oh my god, the rest is history.

• 2:00Ben Thompson?

  I was gonna counsel you, look, you need to not take responsibility for other people's decisions. Cameron is his own person.

• 2:06Andrew Sharp?

  And he made that clear, to be clear. He didn't put it on me, but I still felt guilty during game four.

• 2:11Ben Thompson?

  No, but maybe I'm wrong. If you're, if you were able to turn the tide, maybe you do need to be caring more about your advice.

• 2:19Andrew Sharp?

  Indeed, and every Knicks fan in the audience, thank me over the next several days.

• 2:24Ben Thompson?

  Well, let's let them win first.

• 2:25Andrew Sharp?

  Yeah.

• 2:26Ben Thompson?

  Let's let them win first. Let's let them finish the series.

• 2:29Andrew Sharp?

  It is the Knicks.

• 2:30Ben Thompson?

  Now, a finals loss would be even funnier. So brace yourself.

• 2:34Andrew Sharp?

  Absolutely. Well, for now, Ben, we will begin with WWDC. We're going to talk through Anthropic and its new Fable model later in the show. But first, I look forward to WWDC convos every year.

• 2:50Ben Thompson?

  As a tech guy?

• 2:51Andrew Sharp?

  Well, as a tech guy, as a Vision Pro fanatic, the Vision Pro got a couple of mentions in this year's keynote, so love to see that.

• 2:59Ben Thompson?

  Not dead yet.

• 3:00Andrew Sharp?

  It's not dead yet, you know? We got Siri on the Vision Pro. But in general, it's sort of an Apple State of the Union. It's also how I mark the time on Sharp Tech. I still think back to the initial WWDC with Vision Pro, Apple Intelligence.

• 3:15Ben Thompson?

  I have an extra, I have an extra take on here.

• 3:18Andrew Sharp?

  Okay.

• 3:19Ben Thompson?

  This was actually an incredibly important WWDC for you.

• 3:24Andrew Sharp?

  Why is that?

• 3:25Ben Thompson?

  Because the person at Apple most responsible and most passionate about the Vision Pro is Mike Rockwell, who basically put up his hand and said, let me fix Siri, please.

• 3:38Andrew Sharp?

  Yeah.

• 3:38Ben Thompson?

  Let someone else, like, like, we need to get rid of the clowns that are in charge. Put me in charge, despite the fact, he's like from like, I think like Dolby Logic originally, like no like obvious sort of connection to building AI. And it's one of those things, if WWDC went well, and if he pulls it off, he's going to rise in power.

• 4:00Andrew Sharp?

  No, keep his baby alive.

• 4:01Ben Thompson?

  Well, he's going to rise in power and prominence at the company. There's, there's actually been questions about that, some political intrigue around his position there. And if he were to leave, I think your Vision Pro might be in trouble.

• 4:13Andrew Sharp?

  Mmm.

• 4:14Ben Thompson?

  And if he were to succeed, it might be good for your Vision Pro. So there's a lot at stake.

• 4:18Andrew Sharp?

  It's funny because there was like the line in German. Report around that and around the elevation of Rockwell that did prompt a double take in me as I was reading it because Apple looked to Mike Rockwell. Because Vision Pro was considered a technical success, if not a commercial success. I'm surprised that's the way it's interpreted internally. I mean, I think it's a technological marvel, but I'm surprised that Rockwell is getting any credibility. Out of what Apple's committed to over the last several years.

• 4:51Ben Thompson?

  Well, maybe we'll see. I mean, like the, you know, there were reports a few months ago. He's not super happy about reporting to Craig Federighi. That came out again, sort of the week before. So I think if this, if this works out. And he gets put in charge of more stuff, that might be, uh, might be good for everyone. We'll see.

• 5:09Andrew Sharp?

  There you go. Well, and the palace intrigue will continue indefinitely here. For now.

• 5:15Ben Thompson?

  Not really my beat, to be clear, but uh, yeah, well, because I know how important it is to you.

• 5:19Andrew Sharp?

  And I, and I look to German, you know, I enjoy reading his sort of tea leaf reading and insider reporting, but I have a six pack of questions that we can run through quickly at the top of the show here. We got a lot of emails on the heels of WWDC, but I'll begin with Gabrielle, who wrote on the way into WWDC, sent this email last week. Ben and Andrew, is there any way for Apple to come out of WWDC, leaving a good impression? If they play it safe and only deliver on features that were promised back in 2024, people will think it's just warmed over news.

• 5:58Andrew Sharp?

  On the other hand, if they show off new capabilities for Apple intelligence, people will be wary of trusting them. Which of these approaches should Apple focus on? Is there any third option where they can leave the public excited about what they presented? Without the bitter aftertaste of the whole something is rotten in the state of Cupertino debacle. So there was no third option. A lot of people were pretty underwhelmed. What did you think? You were in Cupertino.

• 6:27Ben Thompson?

  Yeah, I think Apple foreclosed the opportunity. What Gabriel's putting his finger on is they foreclosed the opportunity for people to leave this keynote excited.

• 6:35Andrew Sharp?

  Mm hmm.

• 6:36Ben Thompson?

  For the exact reasons he said. They could show exciting things and no one would believe them. Or they could show like, we're actually like doing basic stuff, but it works this time.

• 6:45Andrew Sharp?

  Yeah.

• 6:45Ben Thompson?

  And then everyone's underwhelmed. So that's Apple's own fault. This is the cost of 2024 is that no one is going to leave 2026 genuinely excited and feeling like Apple is changing the world.

• 6:57Andrew Sharp?

  Mm hmm.

• 6:58Ben Thompson?

  Given that constraint, uh, I thought they did a great job. Uh, and the most important thing, aspect of doing a great job was the extent to which this was a fairly painful keynote.

• 7:13Andrew Sharp?

  Yeah.

• 7:14Ben Thompson?

  On one hand, it was shockingly short. And it was shockingly short despite the fact it felt like approximately 23% of the keynote was watching the indicators.

• 7:30Ben Thompson?

  Like this was the deb, this was the keynote of all keynotes that could have benefited from being live. Where you have, cause, cause what they needed to, they, they needed to rebuild their credibility. And you rebuild your credibility by stuff actually working. Now they, I guess we'll just, they're never going to do that again.

• 7:48Andrew Sharp?

  At this point, but I was texting Doman during the presentation that like all the AI demos were pretty tedious. However, if you were doing them in front of a live audience and then watching it work in real time.

• 8:02Ben Thompson?

  Like what if it fails?

• 8:04Andrew Sharp?

  Yeah, then it becomes kind of thrilling and they could have done that, but didn't.

• 8:09Ben Thompson?

  It's a, this actually is a testament to a weakness of the Tim Cook era.

• 8:15Andrew Sharp?

  Mm hmm.

• 8:16Ben Thompson?

  Like to go out there and do it live and say like, we're go, like, we're going to roll the dice. We think we actually got it and we're going to like go out there and risk total embarrassment. Is itself an acknowledgement of the embarrassment they should already feel.

• 8:33Andrew Sharp?

  Yeah.

• 8:33Ben Thompson?

  Given what happened in 2024. And number two, that is the third way. That's the way where you come out of it and you're like.

• 8:42Andrew Sharp?

  We're hanging it all out there.

• 8:44Ben Thompson?

  Yeah, they went out there. I use that term carefully, but that would have been the response. Like, they went out there, they threw away their pre-recorded keynotes. They said, we are doubling down, we're putting our chips on the table, and we're gonna do live demos, screw it, and you're good, it actually works this time. And in that case, given what they shipped, it's totally what they said in 2024. There was almost nothing new. And you know what? That's fine. Like, I, I, I, what they showed in 2024 was pretty compelling. Like, that's why we were excited in 2024. And, and it's compelling because-

• 9:24Andrew Sharp?

  Crucially, it's compelling for 90% of Apple customers for whom, you know, high-end, expensive AI is not really what they want.

• 9:33Ben Thompson?

  It's compelling for high-end AI customers. Who hasn't not wanted to, like, you knew something, it's in your data somewhere, and you wanted to surface it. And they can do it because they're the operating system. It's, it's because of their position with the iPhone that they are uniquely positioned to do something with AI that no one else can do, even though it's not technically impressive. It's still differentiated, highly differentiated. And that's, that was why I was so enthusiastic about 2024. Because like, aha, they have an angle here. They don't need to do a bunch of capex spending. They can actually deliver something meaningful, given their pre-existing position. They're leveraging their position as-

• 10:18Andrew Sharp?

  They own the data that matters, yeah.

• 10:20Ben Thompson?

  They own the data that matters, and they have a position to, to corral developers to use these App Intent system and their index system to give them their data, even though they, you know, even though like, the developers don't like Apple and all these bits and pieces. But they were, it was a very smart strategic play, and I was very enthusiastic about it in 2024. And if I step out of the, it's 2026, and look what, you know, Mythos or Fable or-

• 10:48Andrew Sharp?

  They should be so ashamed, yeah.

• 10:50Ben Thompson?

  It remains impressive and compelling. And, and now I think where they fell short is they didn't go all the way. I think a live demo would have transformed this. It would have been a smash hit, especially because almost universally, the reports are it works and it works super well. I have not installed, I usually never install betas. I actually do plan on installing this one. This is part and parcel of like, I was still unpacking last year. I have to find like my, my last year's iPhone, my spare iPhone that I carry with me is actually two years ago iPhone. It's been a busy week, so I apologize. I was not properly prepared for the show, but by all accounts, everyone who's talked about it says it just works. And it just works.

• 11:35Ben Thompson?

  That's, that's what Apple needs to get back to is it just works. And it seems like it does.

• 11:42Andrew Sharp?

  Well, we shall see. Boyan responding to your WWDC article on Tuesday, wrote in and said, Apple is not thinking different. It is living in the past and becoming a victim of when all you have is a hammer. Everything looks like a nail mentality. That is exactly the mistake that Microsoft made with mobile. They tried to shoehorn everything into a Windows viewpoint. Apple is replaying the same playbook. If AI changes the world like its biggest protagonists think it will, Apple will be in deep trouble. Fortunately for them, it is very likely that AI becomes just another very useful software layer and Apple dodges a bullet. What do you agree with there?

• 12:23Ben Thompson?

  Was this one Boyan or two Boyans?

• 12:26Andrew Sharp?

  One Boyan.

• 12:28Ben Thompson?

  Because Boyan's last sentence completely refutes like the first like five sentences. If in fact, Apple AI is just another very useful software layer, then that means Apple is in fact thinking different by not spending hundreds of billions of dollars. And going their own way and sticking with the iPhone paradigm. So which is it, Boyan? And like, I don't even need to answer, the guy answered himself.

• 12:54Andrew Sharp?

  I mean, I would say they are demonstrably thinking differently than the rest of tech and have been over the last several years.

• 13:01Ben Thompson?

  And they're also demonstrably anchoring themselves in the iPhone paradigm. That doesn't mean it's wrong. Like that was a point I was trying to like, I had.

• 13:13Ben Thompson?

  I did love my article this week for a few reasons. One of which was this, I had to rewrite like the ending like multiple times. Cause I was trying to say, look, all these critiques, like Boyan's critique is totally legitimate. Apple's totally doing what's best for them. They're totally doing what makes sense for their model. They're totally not investing in things that they're probably not good at.

• 13:32Andrew Sharp?

  And they're not thinking any differently than they were over the last 10 or 15 years.

• 13:36Ben Thompson?

  That's right. And all these things, but when you articulate that companies are doing what is good for them and in their interest and like the, it's usually followed by a but. The world's different now and this is totally wrong thinking. Sometimes it's just right thinking, like you just, you're just fortunate enough like that actually the model works. And the fact of the matter is we, I have talked about multiple times. Boyan should give me a little credit here, or one of the Boyans, Boyan one.

• 14:08Andrew Sharp?

  Yeah.

• 14:08Ben Thompson?

  That there's, yes, you can imagine a future of a different UI paradigm. Just in time UI, there when you need it, gone when you don't. Agents working in the background on your behalf, much more anticipatory of your needs. All these ambient sort of sensors and input devices. This is why I talked about it in the context of like the project Solera bit, which again, I love that demo, even though it almost probably will never ship, it's gonna be vaporware. But it, it was a tangible articulation of a completely different model of computing that is not like the iPhone at all. It's the exact opposite. It's what Boyan, Boyan one says is coming and Apple is screwed. But then Boyan two is here and saying like, actually the iPhone's pretty phenomenal.

• 14:54Ben Thompson?

  And in a context where what, what do consumers pay for? Give me one service that consumers pay for.

• 15:03Andrew Sharp?

  What do you mean? Like a software service? I don't know.

• 15:06Ben Thompson?

  Netflix.

• 15:07Andrew Sharp?

  Hmm.

• 15:08Ben Thompson?

  Yep. What is Netflix?

• 15:10Andrew Sharp?

  Entertainment.

• 15:11Ben Thompson?

  I should have put Netflix in the article because that helped actually make my point more. I just said customers don't pay for it. They don't pay for productivity. They don't like they pay for entertainment. What it, the iPhone is a phenomenal entertainment device. That is its number one functionality. It's like social media, it's vertical video, it's chat, talking to your friends. It's, it, it, now is it also a productivity device? Absolutely. One of the most useful productivity devices in the world. But it's used by people to do work. I do most of my work on the iPhone. I, I do my actual writing. Someone was asking me for like my software stack and like my software stack. It's funny, I have this super powered MacBook Pro like when I use like a text editor.

• 15:48Andrew Sharp?

  Yeah.

• 15:48Ben Thompson?

  And like some Excel spreadsheets maybe. And like I do most of my reading, most of my like thinking, a, a lot of my like sketching out ideas or whatever on my phone. I use an iPhone like a Gen Z maniac.

• 16:01Andrew Sharp?

  Mm hmm.

• 16:02Ben Thompson?

  And it is definitely a productivity device. But for most people, they're not doing work most of the time.

• 16:11Andrew Sharp?

  Yeah.

• 16:11Ben Thompson?

  They, entertainment is just as important, more important in fact than productivity. And on that vector, on what perspective is any of these devices better than a phone?

• 16:26Andrew Sharp?

  I mean, we'll see. It might be 10 years before any sort of device emerges that could actually challenge the primacy of it.

• 16:34Ben Thompson?

  So I'm with boy on, I, I, I'm in Chris with boy on two here. Like, uh, I'm coming around to the, you know, uh, Apple, maybe Apple's lucky to be in this situation. Better be lucky than good.

• 16:45Andrew Sharp?

  No, exactly. And, and like I look at what they announced this past week and Apple doesn't need to hit home runs in AI to win in AI and to double down on all those advantages.

• 16:58Ben Thompson?

  Well, they also don't need to win in AI. They need to, sometimes it's sufficient to maintain your position.

• 17:05Andrew Sharp?

  Yeah.

• 17:05Ben Thompson?

  Right? Like, like they're not going to win. In like, they're not, like, they're not

• 17:11Andrew Sharp?

  They're not gonna have the best AI, the best model. No, exactly. But I guess to change the metaphor, Apple is like the

• 17:18Ben Thompson?

  They might have the most used AI, though.

• 17:19Andrew Sharp?

  What about Apple as the Spurs in the second half of game four last night? They're up 25 points and the key for them here is to not miss nine threes in a row.

• 17:31Ben Thompson?

  Why are you taking nine threes in a row like you're behind?

• 17:35Andrew Sharp?

  Yeah.

• 17:35Ben Thompson?

  Like, just getting layups and free throws would get the job done.

• 17:40Andrew Sharp?

  Yeah. And I think that's what WWDC was this year and it's perfectly sensible as far as I'm concerned. Jonathan says, "Goats, I would love to hear some clarification on the Apple and Google AI deal. I thought Apple was using a white label version of Gemini and/or using Google Cloud for off-device compute." This quote from Craig Federighi, though, sounds like Apple is using nothing from Google? Here's what Federighi said, "Of course, we don't have the Gemini app as our app. In fact, none of that client code is part of how we run on iOS. For these models, we use none of the models that Google deploys to their customers,

• 18:24Andrew Sharp?

  nor do we use the infrastructure and means by which they deploy models to their customers. And then, when it comes to the knowledge base, we of course don't use Google Search or anything like that as the foundation of our system. So I hope that's clear. The amount of the Google Assistant that we use is none." And Jonathan says, "I suspect the truth lies somewhere in the middle, but please, help a normie make sense of this bizarre corporate speak." Can you help Jonathan, Ben?

• 18:53Ben Thompson?

  So, the funniest lie that Craig Federighi said there is, "So I hope this is clear." Because he does not hope it's clear. Like, he did not lie anywhere in this statement and he also created an impression that is totally wrong.

• 19:08Andrew Sharp?

  Okay, great.

• 19:09Ben Thompson?

  I don't know, should I break it down sentence by sentence?

• 19:11Andrew Sharp?

  Yeah, go sentence by sentence. Fire Joe Morgan here.

• 19:14Ben Thompson?

  Oh, I'm not sure how long it's gonna take, but, um, okay. "Of course, we don't have the Gemini app as our app. Duh. Of course, Gemini is an app that you actually download on your phone or go to a website to use. They don't have that. Alright, fine, that's clear. In fact, none of that client code is part of how we run on iOS." This is saying the same thing again. Like, the code of the Gemini app

• 19:38Ben Thompson?

  Is the Gemini app.

• 19:41Ben Thompson?

  No, they did not take the code of the Gemini app. In addition to not taking the Gemini app and put it in their app. So that is just, that's.

• 19:49Andrew Sharp?

  Glad we're clear.

• 19:50Ben Thompson?

  Yes, okay. So again, and the code of the app has nothing to do with the model. The model is like the, the, the app is a means to access the model. Okay, it's, it's just like, whatever. My website is a way to access my writing, right? Like it's like a container for, for it, okay? What's next? For these models, we use none of the models that Google deploys to their customers. They don't use the exact same model that Google gives their customers. Now, that is, uh, that is correct. Nor do we use the infrastructure. Okay, so, but what, what are they actually doing? So that was, I think it's five models, uh, several of them on device and then one that's in the cloud.

• 20:35Ben Thompson?

  So all the ones that are in device are Apple's own models. And by the way, I was, uh, uh, are Apple's own models. Those models are, of course, because they're on device, very small. Now, one of them is pretty interesting. It's actually quite large, a 20 billion parameter model that were only part of it is loaded in memory at the time. Uh, this called a mixture of experts. Usually for a mixture of experts, you load a different expert or use a different expert every token. So it's always like, which means you have to have the whole thing in memory. In this case, you do a expert per query. So they, so when you make a query, it's like, we need this part of the model. It loads only that part of the model into memory and then it's in memory for all the tokens. Anyhow, regardless, they have all those on-device models are Apple models.

• 21:19Ben Thompson?

  But how do you get small models?

• 21:23Andrew Sharp?

  Distill it down?

• 21:24Ben Thompson?

  Distilling, exactly. Then this is, there, there is a, like, they won't say distilling. I think they said that Google derived or in conjunction with Google, basically what you do is you ask the big model questions. And then you get answers and that's how you build your model. These are Google distilled.

• 21:44Andrew Sharp?

  This is legal, above board, distilling that's happening between Apple and Google.

• 21:50Ben Thompson?

  The reason, it's not just legal, having. Actual access to the model. So the whole idea of generating tokens, there's actually multiple layers underneath. If you're only getting access to the final output, it's you can distill from that, but it's way more inefficient and you're not getting as broad of a coverage and understanding of this sort of parent model. If you have actual access to the model, your distilling is far more effective. And by the way, when you're accessing most of these models online, including chat GPT Anthropic, you're accessing a distilled model as it is. No one's getting access to the real model because it'd be astronomically expensive and impossible to scale. So even like the big models that are online are distilled to an extent.

• 22:32Ben Thompson?

  And then, and they can do a good job of it because it's their model. So they can distill it better than anyone else can. But all those models on Apple's devices are not the models that Google serves. They are the models Apple serves because both Google and Apple distill from Gemini for models to serve. So they're doing their own distilling in with Google's help, but it's, it's, it's not Google's. It's not the same ones that Google has. It's so the one in the cloud then, the one in the cloud, as I understand it, is some sort of Gemini model at its base. But then the way models are today, there's so much post-training and things you sort of layer on after the initial model is done,

• 23:18Ben Thompson?

  that it's effectively, it's not a different model, but it's, there's multiple variations of models that, that can be accessed. And that, that when you see all these companies, oh, new model, new model, they're releasing models all the time. Now, there's genuinely new models like say a Mythos that is like a new, a new, a, a training run. But lots of the new model releases are not new training runs. They're new post-training and new sort of reinforcement learning that sort of makes, they're continually being improved by this post-pre like, you do one pre-training a year, a couple of year, and then you just, you iterate on that one that's there. So Apple has done that to Gemini. That's what's being served in the cloud. It, that is different than Google's and appropriately so.

• 24:01Ben Thompson?

  They're tuning the model for their use case. So all of this is.

• 24:07Ben Thompson?

  Intimately integrated with Gemini and Craig Federighi went out of his way to make you think that wasn't the case.

• 24:15Andrew Sharp?

  Obfuscate this.

• 24:16Ben Thompson?

  But he didn't lie, right? So, uh, so I hope that's clear. No, it's not clear and you did that on purpose. So now, do we use the infrastructure and means by which they deploy their model, models to their customers? No, they have their own setup with, uh, and this is actually one of the more interesting parts with, uh, Intel head nodes and Nvidia GPUs.

• 24:38Andrew Sharp?

  Okay.

• 24:38Ben Thompson?

  Uh, this is different than a standard like Nvidia rack where Nvidia has their own head node with their, with their, uh, Grace, uh, Grace GPU and then like a Blackwell, like that's why it's called Grace Blackwell. Blackwell is actually the GPU, Grace is the CPU. Uh, and then you have Vera Rubin. Vera is the CPU, Rubin is the, is the GPU. They're using the Nvidia GPU part.

• 24:59Andrew Sharp?

  I never knew that, okay.

• 25:00Ben Thompson?

  With Intel as the front part. And the reason they have those is both Intel and Nvidia have secure enclave technology that lets you like ensure you get the private cloud compute aspects. Cause it's full, the, the whole chain is fully verifiable. Like what got passed there, did it get flushed, where it went? And so it's a whole cryptographic sort of handshake between your device, the Intel head node, the Nvidia GPU, that it's fully secured, that whole chain. So they could continue to make their promise around private cloud compute, even though it's totally different than the private cloud compute they tried to sell two years ago, which is our servers on our chips, like, you know, running in the cloud. So, um, so they realize.

• 25:44Andrew Sharp?

  Apple infrastructure here, not Google's infrastructure.

• 25:47Ben Thompson?

  No, it's Google infrastructure. It is running in Google data centers. Uh, so it's running in Google data centers on Intel and Nvidia chips. Uh, and so it is, this is a total switch from what private cloud compute was. It's still credibly private cloud compute because of this technology that's embedded in these Intel and Nvidia chips that lets you cryptographically guarantee that that it's totally private.

• 26:13Andrew Sharp?

  Yeah.

• 26:13Ben Thompson?

  But it's a total change in infrastructure. And that's not what Google uses. Google uses fleets of TPUs. They don't have the cryptographic guarantees as far as it being private and all those sorts of things. So knowledge base, we don't use Google search. Yes, they had apparently they have their own search index, which which is sort of interesting. And then we get to, so I hope that's clear. And then the amount of the Google Assistant we use is none. Google Assistant is an app like, yeah, we get it. We don't, you don't use. The Google Assistant is like the old app. So it's like, we don't use the new app and we don't use the old app. Thanks, Craig. We we figured that out.

• 26:47Andrew Sharp?

  So nonsense, nonsense. First clause of the third sentence is also pretty misleading. But they don't use the infrastructure and means by which they deploy models to their customers. That seems to be the most accurate claim there.

• 27:03Ben Thompson?

  And then No, everything in here is correct.

• 27:06Andrew Sharp?

  It's Well, I the least misleading claim. So in any event, Jonathan, I hope that clears things up for you. Paul says, if Siri AI is some sort of consumer harness for white labeled Gemini, although the underlying model itself is an Apple. Given Ben's note today about the integration value of harnesses, is that circumstance enough to give Apple AI breathing room for a while to come? Given their distribution advantages, OS device integration mode, installed base, et cetera? And assuming Siri AI was developed all in house. If Apple was able to create a good harness light for Gemini,

• 27:49Andrew Sharp?

  isn't that skill valuable enough to let them keep some competitive tension among the leading models? And finally, if Apple was able to make a smaller Gemini derived model run on device, does that further help maintain competitive tension among model makers all to Apple's advantage? Any thoughts there?

• 28:10Ben Thompson?

  Yeah, so I'm sorry, Paul. I'm gonna have to pick on you a little bit. But I think this question is, I think, stands in for a lot of people who don't have an awareness of how advanced AI is right now.

• 28:25Andrew Sharp?

  All right, and that is the end of the free preview. If you'd like to hear more from Ben and I, there are links to subscribe in the show notes, or you can also go to sharptech.fm. Either option will get you access to a personalized feed that has all the shows we do every week, plus lots more great content from Certechery and the Certechery Plus bundle. Check it out, and if you've got feedback, please email us at [email protected].