Apple Inc has closed in on an agreement with OpenAI to use the start-up’s technology on the iPhone, part of a broader push to bring artificial intelligence (AI) features to its devices, people familiar with the matter said.
The two sides have been finalizing terms for a pact to use ChatGPT features in Apple’s iOS 18, the next iPhone operating system, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the situation is private.
Apple also has held talks with Alphabet Inc’s Google about licensing its Gemini chatbot. Those discussions have not led to an agreement, but are ongoing.
Photo: AP
An OpenAI accord would let Apple offer a popular chatbot as part of a flurry of new AI features that it plans to announce next month.
Still, there is no guarantee that an agreement would be announced imminently, the people said.
Representatives for Apple, OpenAI and Google declined to comment.
Apple plans to make a splash in the AI world next month, when it holds its annual Worldwide Developers Conference. As part of the push, the company would run some of its upcoming AI features via data centers equipped with its own in-house processors, Bloomberg has reported.
Last year, Apple chief executive officer Tim Cook said he personally uses OpenAI’s ChatGPT, but added that there were “a number of issues that need to be sorted.”
Cook promised that new AI features would come to Apple’s products on a “very thoughtful basis.”
On Apple’s earnings conference call early this month, Cook said that Apple would have an edge in AI.
“We believe in the transformative power and promise of AI, and we believe we have advantages that will differentiate us in this new era, including Apple’s unique combination of seamless hardware, software and services integration,” Cook said during the earnings call.
Separately, OpenAI is to announce product updates on livestream today, the company said in a post, stoking speculation about the AI giant’s next major release.
OpenAI said that it would not be launching a search product at the event.
Instead, the announcement would center around an update to ChatGPT and its GPT-4 AI model.
It has been more than a year since the company released GPT-4, its last flagship model, and a new version has been widely anticipated in the tech world.
However, the company said that it would not be launching GPT-5 — a sequel that is expected to be significantly more powerful.
In a post on X on Friday, OpenAI chief executive officer Sam Altman wrote: “not gpt-5, not a search engine, but we’ve been hard at work on some new stuff we think people will love! feels like magic to me.”
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