When Apple unveiled its Apple Intelligence feature set on Monday, the company also announced a partnership with Artificial Intelligence leader OpenAI that will provide access to ChatGPT for Siri, Apple’s virtual assistant. The partnership will provide better responses from the assistant on devices running iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS Sequoia.
A new report from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman says no money is being exchanged under the arrangement:
Apple isn’t paying OpenAI as part of the partnership, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the deal terms are private. Instead, Apple believes pushing OpenAI’s brand and technology to hundreds of millions of its devices is of equal or greater value than monetary payments, these people said.
The partnership could prove to be quite expensive for OpenAI, as more users will be tapping into ChatGPT’s capabilities, which equals an increase in computing expenses.
However, as noted by Gurman, OpenAI could make income by pushing Apple users to subscribe to ChatGPT Plus for $20 per month. It’s not tough to imagine that Apple will charge a commission for any such subscription if the subscription is made through an Apple device.
Currently, OpenAI’s standalone ChatGPT app for iOS supports paying for ChatGPT Plus through Apple’s In-App Purchase system, earning Apple a 15-30% cut of those subscriptions.
As mentioned in the report, Apple is already discussing offering Google’s Gemini chatbot as an additional AI option. That agreement should be in place by later this year.
Apple will be looking for revenue to replace the income it receives from its lucrative search deal with Google, due to the company’s belief that it will receive less from Google as more people turn to AI instead of search engines. The company would likely take a cut of the revenue generated from monetizing chatbot results on its operating systems.
Apple faces a challenge in China, where services like ChatGPT and Gemini are barred. While Apple has yet to come to an agreement with a Chinese provider for its chatbot, it has been considering such an arrangement with companies such as Baidu and Alibaba. Apple Intelligence will at first only be available in U.S. English, with more language set support coming next year.
