There have been numerous rumors about Apple in talks with OpenAI to incorporate its GPT technology into iOS 18. According to a report from The Information, these discussions have been ongoing since mid-2023, causing concern for Microsoft as it also depends on OpenAI.
Apple and OpenAI have been negotiating for a year
In a recent report about Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, The Information delved into more specifics about the anticipated partnership with Apple, set to be announced at WWDC 2024 in less than two weeks. Apple has been developing new AI-driven features for its operating systems, and OpenAI will have a significant role in powering some of these features.
As per the report, Apple’s machine learning team met with Altman and other OpenAI members in mid-2023, around the time of last year’s WWDC. While the exact details of their discussions remain undisclosed, both companies eventually struck a deal for Apple employees to utilize OpenAI APIs for internal testing.
During these tests, Apple engineers integrated ChatGPT with Siri, showcasing impressive demonstrations of Siri handling more complex queries than usual, including better understanding the context of user input. Evidence of Apple’s use of such APIs was discovered in the iOS 17.4 code by 9to5Mac.
The potential applications for Apple are vast, with sources familiar with the matter indicating that the company is concentrating on leveraging OpenAI technologies to enhance Siri’s ability to respond to more intricate questions and potentially transform it into a chatbot. OpenAI demonstrated to Apple how Siri could become more dynamic, natural, and even offer real-time translation using its APIs.
However, Apple intends to ensure that users are aware when a Siri response is generated by ChatGPT.
Microsoft is worried about this deal
The report also discloses Microsoft’s apprehension regarding the collaboration between Apple and OpenAI. This is due to Microsoft’s existing partnership with OpenAI, where OpenAI supplies the technologies for Microsoft Copilot, while Microsoft allows OpenAI to utilize its data centers for ChatGPT.
Altman recently had a meeting with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella to address these concerns. Specifically, Microsoft is concerned about managing the demand for servers when Apple introduces new features for iPhone and iPad users. The company behind Windows also requested a share of future OpenAI profits in exchange for investing $13 billion in the startup.
On one hand, Microsoft is likely to benefit financially from the partnership between Apple and OpenAI. However, Apple’s AI capabilities will directly compete with those of Microsoft.
Apple also attempted to strike a deal with Google to incorporate Gemini into iOS 18 while simultaneously negotiating with OpenAI. Despite this, the company has also been developing its own language model that can operate offline to handle simpler tasks like text summarization.
The initial glimpse of iOS 18’s new AI features will be revealed by Apple on June 10 at the WWDC 2024 kick-off event.
