Apple Not Paying OpenAI to Integrate ChatGPT on iOS 18, macOS Sequoia: Report

Apple announced its partnership with OpenAI, which will integrate the latter's artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot ChatGPT into the iPhone, iPad, and Mac devices, at the Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) 2024 keynote session on June 10.  A new report now highlights that Apple is not offering any monetary benefits to the AI firm for this deal, and neither is OpenAI paying a fee to the iPhone maker. However, reportedly the deal still opens avenues for both sides to make significant monetary gains.

Apple-OpenAI Deal does not involve monetary transaction

Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reports that the Apple-OpenAI partnership “isn't expected to generate meaningful revenue for either party — at least at the outset.” Citing people briefed on the matter, the report states that Apple believes that the exposure OpenAI's brand and technology will get due to reaching “hundreds of millions” of Apple users will offset the value of a monetary payment.

This does not mean that OpenAI is paying the Cupertino-based tech giant. Unlike the Google-Apple deal where the former was reportedly paying $15 Billion (roughly 1,25,319 crores) to remain the default search engine on iPhone, iPad, and Mac in 2021, this deal will not result in direct monetary benefits for Apple either. Instead, the report claims Apple aims to entice more people into buying its devices (or upgrading, if they own an older device) with ChatGPT's AI offerings.

Apple also does not intend to stop at integrating ChatGPT into its operating systems, as per the report. The company is said to be in talks with Google to onboard Gemini's chatbot as an additional option. This was also hinted at by Apple's Senior Vice President of Software Engineering, Craig Federighi in a post-WWDC keynote discussion.

Further, Gurman claims that the iPhone maker has also held discussions with Anthropic, the maker of Claude AI chatbot, as another potential partner. The company's AI strategy is believed to offer multiple AI services to users so they can choose the one they prefer.

Notably, Apple is also powering multiple AI features in its devices via an in-house AI model which will process information both on-device and via the recently announced Private Cloud Compute servers.