When OpenAI CEO Sam Altman visited Apple’s annual developer conference this week, he strolled about campus and chatted with current and former executives, including Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak. Nearly an hour later, the iPhone maker confirmed a long-rumored cooperation with OpenAI to deliver its ChatGPT technology to handsets later this year.
However, Altman, who has emerged as the poster child for generative AI in the 18 months since the introduction of ChatGPT, did not appear in Apple’s formal presentation, either in person or via livestream. He also did not attend a special press event hosted by Apple CEO Tim Cook and other officials to discuss privacy, security, and the two firms’ collaboration.
“I was not surprised Sam Altman did not appear on stage,” said Ben Wood, an analyst at market research firm CCS Insight, in a CNN interview. “Apple had to handle the message carefully. OpenAI is simply a platform for addressing broader AI-powered inquiries that are not central to the Apple experience. Having him in the webcast would have caused unnecessary confusion.”
Earlier this week, Apple demonstrated a number of AI-based features that will be available on the iPhone, iPad, and Mac in the autumn, the majority of which are powered by the company’s own proprietary technology, known as Apple Intelligence.
The business will provide OpenAI’s viral ChatGPT technology on a restricted basis, typically only when Siri is engaged and need additional assistance answering a question.
The decision to invite Altman to the announcement but not have him appear in public reflects Apple’s cautious approach to the cooperation. Researchers, business experts, and government officials continue to express concerns about OpenAI and other AI startups including misinformation, biases, copyright, privacy and security, and other issues. The transaction also occurs at a time when the industry is rapidly evolving, and government authorities, businesses, and consumers are still finding out how to engage with technology properly.
Apple thinks that a significant push into AI could boost iPhone sales, as the gadget has been without a major upgrade in years and people are now waiting longer to upgrade their smartphones as a result. Consumers are also feeling the effects of an uncertain economic environment, especially in China.
The corporation is also under regulatory investigation in Washington, and it was recently surpassed by chipmaker Nvidia as the second-largest public company in the United States. However, in the 60 hours following Apple’s Monday event, the company’s stock price (AAPL) climbed by up to 10%, increasing Apple’s market capitalization by more than $300 billion, surpassing Nvidia and putting Apple back in contention with Microsoft for the greatest market v
The timing is also noteworthy: Apple is not always the first to adopt and integrate emerging technologies — it typically researches, develops, and strives to perfect new technology for years before incorporating it into new products — but the rate at which the world is adopting generative AI may hasten the company’s need to have a smartphone with the latest buzzy technology.
“Apple needed to deliver an AI story and Apple Intelligence should help placate nervous investors and reassure them that Apple is keeping pace with its rivals,” Wood stated. “The partnership with ChatGPT is a major development which beefs up Apple’s AI offerings, and new features like a significantly improved Siri will be welcome to users.”
However, the cooperation may expose Apple to some risk, given it has no control over OpenAI’s models or what it does with user inputs. Apple’s partnership with a firm and technology that has yet to gain public trust may provide some issues in the future.
Although Apple has been working on its own AI program for years, partnering with OpenAI allows it to close competitive gaps.
When a user has a question that is beyond Siri’s purview, ChatGPT can step in. Following the event, Apple demonstrated to CNN how someone might upload a picture of vegetables from a farmer’s market and inquire what they could create for supper. Siri may indicate that the question is better suited to ChatGPT and prompt the user to give consent to use the service.
Apple’s use of ChatGPT as a complementary service has the potential to reduce company risks. It’s also feasible that Apple will collaborate with other AI businesses in the future, such as Google’s Gemini or niche providers with specific skills, such as in healthcare.
“I think Apple will take a pragmatic approach to the OpenAI partnership,” Wood stated. “If Apple discovers that its relationship with OpenAI is affecting the overall user experience or, worse, creating difficulties around security and data integrity, it may attempt to implement further safeguards or find alternative ways to distribute AI-powered content.
Apple has been open about how it aims to keep user data private and secure when utilizing its own proprietary technology, stating that most AI tasks would be performed on the phone and inputs will be kept away from a remote server cloud.
“As we look to build in these incredible new capabilities, we want to ensure that the outcome reflects the principles at the core of our products, it has to be powerful enough to help with the things that matter most to you,” Cook stated in his keynote address. “It must be intuitive and simple to use. It must be firmly integrated into your product experiences.
“And, of course, it has to be built with privacy, from the ground up,” he stated.
Apple stated that it will not share any personal user information with OpenAI, therefore inquiries conducted through ChatGPT will not be linked to an Apple account. The recurring consent prompt requiring users to opt into utilizing ChatGPT with Siri is also interesting; each time Siri wants to send a question to ChatGPT, it will first ask for permission.
Wood argues that the consent prompts and other safeguards implemented by Apple “reflect its nervousness.”
Meanwhile, Reece Hayden, a lead analyst at ABI Research, told CNN that Apple’s strategy is sound because it gives users the option of how to deal with their data.
“By providing a phased approach that blends ChatGPT and native capabilities, users will worry less about the partnership,” he stated. “Apple can also continue to highlight their own AI capabilities and mitigate some of the risks of being associated with OpenAI, which remains in a state of flux.”
Companies such as OpenAI have acknowledged the serious risks posed by AI, ranging from manipulation to a loss of control that could lead to human extinction; however, many experts, researchers, and AI employees believe they should be doing more to educate the public about these risks and protective measures. Just last week, a group of OpenAI insiders asked that artificial intelligence businesses be much more open about their concerns about the technology they are developing.
So it was no surprise that several industry watchers, including Elon Musk, reacted quickly to Apple’s collaboration with OpenAI.
Musk claimed in a post on X on Monday that if Apple pursued their AI plans, he would prohibit Apple products from his firms, which include Tesla, SpaceX, and X, among others. Musk stated that if Apple “integrates OpenAI at the (operating system) level,” it would be “an unacceptable security violation.”
Although issues about how employees use AI models are currently being discussed globally across numerous industries, Gartner researcher Annette Zimmermann believes Musk’s reaction is misguided and the topic is not limited to iPhones.
“Any employee with a smartphone should follow company policies and not enter any private information into the open domain of ChatGPT,” she stated. “This is not specific to the iPhone … or Tesla.”
According to Andrew Cornwall, a senior analyst at Forrester, Apple users are unlikely to grow devoted to ChatGPT, as many will not utilize the service unless the iPhone maker provides a suitable reaction.
“When users do query ChatGPT, Apple will track the prompts and gather metrics to improve its own models,” he stated. “Apple may change vendors or even employ many third-party services until it has mastered its own approach. At that point, Apple will close the garden gate.
