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Apple and OpenAI closing in on deal for ChatGPT in iOS
- According to a trusted industry analyst, Apple and OpenAI could be finalizing a deal to bring ChatGPT features to iOS.
- It is unclear if Apple’s AI features based on its own LLM would debut on iOS alongside OpenAI features.
- Meanwhile, a separate negotiation with Google to bring Gemini features to iOS is still ongoing.
Over the past six months, Google has been hitting Gemini hard. It seems Gemini is now in everything Google does, including the Android operating system, the most popular mobile OS in the world. Meanwhile, Apple hasn’t done that much at all with generative AI and large language models (LLM). All signs point to that changing very soon — just not through Apple itself.
Over the past few months, we’ve learned that Apple has been in discussions with both Google and OpenAI (which owns ChatGPT) about using their respective LLMs to power future features coming to iOS. Now, according to industry analyst Mark Gurman, Apple’s deal with OpenAI might be close to finalized.
BREAKING: Apple is finalizing a deal with OpenAI to power some Generative AI features — like a chatbot — for the new iOS this year. Talks with Google to integrate Gemini are ongoing but no deal has been reached. https://t.co/8CqoiLM2uO— Mark Gurman (@markgurman) May 11, 2024
It’s too early to say, but it’s looking very likely that OpenAI could power some iOS 18 features. Meanwhile, negotiations with Google are ongoing. Therefore, it is possible that there could be iOS features powered by both companies, which would certainly be interesting.
Missing in all this is Apple’s own LLM. We know Apple has something in the pipeline in this realm, codenamed internally as “Ajax.” It’s possible, though, that the company is lagging in development, at least enough to have something of substance ready for iOS 18. If that’s the case, that would explain Apple’s courting of both OpenAI and Google — it doesn’t have anything of its own, and it can’t risk waiting for Ajax to be ready because by then, it will be too far behind the competition.
Apple will officially announce iOS 18 at its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in June, so we’ll know then for certain how these deals panned out.