Apple and OpenAI reportedly reach agreement before WWDC

Perhaps against the wishes of Apple’s AI chief John Giannandrea, Apple and OpenAI have reportedly reached a deal that would bring ChatGPT to iOS 18 and other operating systems in 2024.

Apple wants to integrate AI into its platforms, but it has focused on privacy-preserving in-device models and not the large language models (LLMs) used by its competitors. The company therefore sought a partnership with Google or Microsoft to offer their LLMs on iPhone.

According to a report, a deal has finally been reached between OpenAI and Apple. Details of the deal are unknown, but it likely means that technologies used for ChatGPT could be accessible to Apple users, including through Siri.

An agreement with OpenAI does not close options with other players in the AI ​​industry. One rumor suggested that Apple was looking to create an AI App Store, so OpenAI could be one of several companies populating such a store.

Internal politics are likely the driving force behind this compromise, as the report states that Apple’s senior vice president of machine learning and AI strategy, John Giannandrea, said in an email in 2023 that “the last thing people needed was another chatbot.” So either Apple didn’t bother with a server-side LLM or they started too late and it’s not ready.

Regardless, if this report is true, Apple likely won’t announce an Apple-made LLM to replace Siri. Instead, it will use server-side products like ChatGPT to answer user questions.

For example, today, if you ask Siri something that would require a search, Siri sends a search query to Google using an anonymous identifier. OpenAI could have a similar option for users, where queries requiring AI would pass information to ChatGPT in a privacy-preserving manner and return a helpful response read by Siri.

The WWDC keynote where all will be revealed will take place on June 10. Stay tuned AppleInsider as we continue to break down exclusive leaks regarding iOS 18 and AI.