Apple and OpenAI allegedly reach deal to bring ChatGPT functionality to iOS 18
Perhaps against the wishes of Apple's AI chief John Giannandrea, Apple and OpenAI have reportedly reached a deal that will bring ChatGPT to iOS 18 and other operating systems in 2024.
Apple and OpenAI could bring ChatGPT functionality to Siri
Apple wants to bring AI to its platforms, but it has focused on privacy-preserving on-device models and not the Large Language Models (LLMs) used by its competitors. So, the company has been seeking a partnership with Google or Microsoft to bring their LLMs to iPhone.
According to a report, a deal has finally been struck between OpenAI and Apple. The details of the deal aren't known, but it likely means technologies used for ChatGPT could be accessible by Apple users, namely through Siri.
A deal with OpenAI doesn't close out options with other AI industry players. One rumor suggested Apple was looking to create an AI App Store, so OpenAI could be one of several companies populating such a store.
Internal politics are the likely driver of this compromise, as the report shared that Apple's Senior Vice President 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 isn't ready.
Whatever the case, if this report is true, Apple likely won't be announcing 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 way and return a useful answer read by Siri.
The WWDC keynote where everything will be revealed is on June 10. Stay tuned to AppleInsider as we continue to break exclusive leaks surrounding iOS 18 and AI.
Rumor Score: Possible
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https://www.reddit.com/r/hardware/comments/1cwdlak/notebookcheck_apple_m4_soc_analysis_amd_intel_and/ Geek Meltdown
Copilot (formerly Bing Chat) vs. ChatGPT: Which AI chatbot should you use? (zapier.com)
Do you have proof that Microsoft's Copilot PC isn't about AI but is an effort to raise the price of the PC to where Apple is selling its Macs? The Microsoft Store price for a 15" 16GB/512GB 12th Gen Intel Core i7 machine was £1799 in the UK, whereas the Microsoft Store price for a Snapdragon X Elite 12-core 15" machine is £1549 (again for the 16GB/512GB variant).. a cool saving of £250. Good of Microsoft to pass on the savings, perhaps not every manufacturer has / will....
If you think Apple, two years after the buzz around this subject hit the mainstream, will still have to 'temporarily' use a competitor's solution, then it doesn't look great.
Most people up to now have simply pointed to the painfully obvious fact that Apple has been behind because it had no competing solution.
It was always unwise to counterargue that it wasn't behind and pointing to the future.
Those competitors also have a future and are moving very, very fast.
We just don't know what will be announced next month and also have no idea when it will reach Apple users. I suppose we are realistically looking at year end.
The question then will be 'in what state?' Beta? Fully baked? Fully baked but limited? Will they try to monetise it? If so, to what degree.
If you have the possibility of integrating someone else's solution, it's nice to have those options while you work on your own. Some people will have problem with that.
I very much doubt Apple even considered going another year without these options, so at some point over these last two years someone probably said it's time to pivot the ship to AI. Late but better late than never.
At this point, it's clear to me that Apple got caught off guard with this.
Better to accept that, move on and look forward to having those options available at system level.
Apple's advantage is getting AI into end users' hands and increasing the sales potential for device upgrades. Most other companies don't have the same level of market penetration of end-user products with the potential to run AI locally. This is going to be huge over the next few years, and I can't wait to see where AAPL goes.
I just read that Apple News+ has been astronomically successful, yet another area in which Apple is 'new' and 'late to the game' then takes an industry lead. Do I really need to list all the other examples? When will the nay-sayers get it? Apple tends to succeed (to put it mildly), even if not immediately.
This isn't about being 'behind' it's about 'how' and 'when' to have the best results and long-term benefits to Apple and the billions of Apple device users. Not about 'I got there. First, I have a website where people using computer products can play.'
I think they will all do very well. Apple certainly seems well-positioned to benefit from a mature, well-thought-out strategy.
What does this cooperation mean? Is it cloud-based AI or on device AI?
Will OpenAI get the access to user data?
The difference over the last two years has been how quickly some solutions have reached 'userland' (directly or indirectly) with little to no effort on the user's part and how blazingly fast those solutions have evolved.
When things like Sora get a universal release it will have to come with some very tight reigns.
End users won't be interested in running weather prediction models or models for pharmaceutical research. They don't need to know about NLP, NLU, NLG even though they are touched by it every day.
But when AI solutions using these models are used daily from within universal apps like WhatsApp and use natural language etc to interact, that is where a lot of the buzz has been over the last two years.
A buzz that, with hindsight, Apple probably amplified by refusing to even utter the words when the spotlight fell on it.
Being behind is a statement of fact. No more. No less.
Strategically, Apple got caught short. What comes next is anybody's guess but this article points to 'outside' solutions. I'm saying that shouldn't be a issue for anyone but obviously some of those who have claimed Apple isn't behind will have issues with it.
If the Flintstones had access to these options, no doubt Siri would be a good fit for the times and it doesn't surprise me that its due for a huge AI overhaul (according to rumours). However, one of Apple's main Siri issues seems to be that there isn't one Siri for all devices but multiple Siris, all performing differently.
I for one welcome all of the semiconductor and hardware companies in the computer business today, that are now roughly technology equals, something that hasn't been the case for many years. This ultimately leads to more competition and more choice.
If AI is really a differentiator in products, then that should become apparent pretty early. My own opinion is that there will be a strong increase in hardware sales, and likely little shift in platform share. The big question in my mind is whether x86 can survive the onslaught of Arm.
We’ll see what it all means soon!