Apple will lean on Google to help finish its bungled attempts to smarten up its virtual assistant Siri and bring other artificial intelligence features to the iPhone as the trendsetting company plays catch up in technology’s latest craze.

Jan 12 (Reuters) - Apple (AAPL.O) will use Google's Gemini models for its revamped Siri coming later this year under a ‌multi-year deal that deepens the tech giants' alliance in the artificial intelligence era and bolsters Alphabet's position in the race against OpenAI.

Apple was facing increasing questions about its plans for artificial intelligence as other big tech companies invested tens of billions in the technology.

Alphabet became the fourth company to reach a $4 trillion market valuation on Monday, underscoring the scale of investor enthusiasm surrounding artificial intelligence and the dominance of mega-cap technology firms in global equity markets.

Three Democratic U.S. senators are calling on Apple and Alphabet's Google to remove X and its built-in artificial intelligence chatbot Grok from their app stores, citing the spread of nonconsensual sexual images of women and minors on the platform.

Apple downgraded to Hold as AI execution lags, the iPhone outlook weakens, and costs rise. Click here to read my analysis of the AAPL stock.