Malcolm Owen
Apple is reportedly considering making investment into OpenAI, makers of the popular ChatGPT service, in a move that could shore up Apple's standing in the AI marketplace.
As part of the Apple Intelligence initiative arriving later in the year as part of iOS 18, Apple will allow users to connect Siri to ChatGPT to handle queries. However, the involvement of the two companies could be deepened by a cash injection from Apple.
There are talks for Apple to invest into OpenAI as part of a new funding round, according to the Wall Street Journal. It is unknown how much the investment will be, but it's likely to be in the billions.
A previous report revealed that venture capitalist company Thrive Capital is leading the round itself, which is anticipated to total several billion dollars in value.
Apple probably wouldn't be the only major tech company to put money into the venture. Microsoft has already invested $13 billion into OpenAI since 2019, owns a 49% share of its profits, and is also believed to be putting more in as part of the ropund.
Following the partnership announcement at WWDC, Apple was reportedly looking for a new board obserber role at OpenAI, one that could've been occupied by Phil Schiller. However, that July rumor was quashed as Microsoft resigned its own observer seat.
For Apple, the investment is a logical move since it is working directly with the company in improving its Apple Intelligence effort. It could also allow Apple to deepen the integration, potentially doing so in a similar way to Microsoft and its own products.
OpenAI has already released a ChatGPT app for Mac, though it did encounter some initial launch problems.
Amber Neely
Andrew Orr
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9 Comments
It will be interesting however within Apple insiders in Apple know, how good Apple Intelligence combined with OpenAI will be.
I've been more impressed by Claude from Anthropic.
Hopefully someday Apple Intelligence will run spell check before articles to AppleInsider are submitted...
:p
If only someone would create a standalone, manually invoked spell check in the interim... If LLMs already help students write term papers and cubicle monkeys write e-mails, why not news articles? Ah, to dream...
;)
I’m quite happy with ChatGPT so far for what I use it for, which is mainly looking up help related information. I still remember when apps came with huge help libraries, for example most of Microsoft’s office productivity and development platforms. Looking stuff up inside these massive proprietary help systems, even ones built using Microsoft’s help framework, was always slow and inconvenient, but you had no other option. On the development side, keeping these systems updated was a pain.