OpenAI preparing ‘legal action’ against Apple over Siri partnership: report

Apple and OpenAI inked a deal to integrate ChatGPT with Siri as part of iOS 18 in 2024. According to a new report today, however, OpenAI is displeased with how the partnership has played out and is considering taking legal action against Apple.

According to Bloomberg, OpenAI lawyers are working with an outside legal firm “on a range of options that could be formally executed in the near future.” One possible outcome is that OpenAI sends Apple a notice “alleging breach of contract without necessarily filing a full lawsuit at the outset.”

The report says:

“OpenAI believed that the companies’ partnership, which wove ChatGPT into Apple software, would coax more users into subscribing to the chatbot. It also expected deeper integration across more Apple apps and prime placement within the Siri assistant.”

An unnamed OpenAI executive, quoted by Bloomberg, alleges that the company has “done everything from a product perspective,” while Apple has not held up its end of the deal.

“We have done everything from a product perspective,” the executive said. “They have not, and worse, they haven’t even made an honest effort.”

One aspect of the OpenAI integration into iOS is the ability to sign up for a paid ChatGPT subscription via the Settings app on iPhone. OpenAI reportedly believed this “could generate billions of dollars per year in subscriptions,” which apparently “hasn’t come close to happening.”

“When we heard about this opportunity, it sounded amazing: being able to acquire a giant number of customers and have distribution in such a big mobile ecosystem,” said the OpenAI executive. At the time, though, Apple was unwilling to share exactly what the product would be, the person said.

“They basically said, ‘OpenAI needs to take a leap of faith and trust us,’” the executive said, adding that the deal ended up being a failure for the startup.

There is no money changing hands between Apple and OpenAI as part of this deal, outside of Apple getting a cut of those subscriptions. Apple is not paying OpenAI for use of its technology.

OpenAI’s displeasure comes ahead of WWDC, where Apple is expected to announce a next-generation version of Siri powered by Google Gemini. iOS 27 will also reportedly let users integrate with other AI models, including Anthropic’s Claude.

Apple opening the iPhone up to other AI models “isn’t driving the company’s legal action since the partnership wasn’t meant to be exclusive from the start,” according to the unnamed OpenAI executive.

OpenAI wasn’t interested in working with Apple on the new models because it felt burned by the initial relationship, according to the people. “Apple has so much market power that they can dictate terms,” the executive said. “We already took this leap of faith with you, and it didn’t work out well.”

Meanwhile, OpenAI is also developing its own hardware products and has poached many Apple engineers to work on the devices. Additionally, that effort is being led by former Apple design chief Jony Ive. Apple executives “have been fuming for more than a year” over OpenAI’s recruiting tactics.

Currently, ChatGPT is integrated throughout iOS, including as a fallback for Siri for world-knowledge queries. It’s also available via Image Playgrounds for image generation and Visual Intelligence.

“No final decisions have been made, and OpenAI still hopes to resolve its issues with Apple outside of court,” the report says.

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