Apple and OpenAI have signed a deal to integrate ChatGPT into Siri and Apple’s new writing tool. The iPhone maker did not pay OpenAI, according to sources familiar with the matter, Bloomberg. Instead, the company believes that raising OpenAI’s brand and getting its technology into hundreds of millions of devices is worth as much or more than money.

On Apple's side, thanks to OpenAI, they can provide advanced chatbots to customers, essentially enticing users to use their devices more or "upgrade" their devices.

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Apple CEO Tim Cook on stage at WWDC 2024 on June 10. Photo: DPA

The deal with OpenAI is part of Apple's broader push into AI. At its annual developer conference (WWDC) 2024, the company introduced a suite of homegrown Apple Intelligence features for iPhone, iPad, and Mac.

While ChatGPT is currently free to use on Apple products, both parties can make money by converting free users to paid ones. OpenAI subscriptions start at $20 a month and include features like data analysis and creating more types of images. If a user signs up for OpenAI on an Apple device through ChatGPT, the process uses Apple’s payment platform and incurs a commission.

In addition to ChatGPT, Apple is in talks to bring Google's Gemini chatbot to the iPhone. The deal could be reached by the end of the year. Apple is also in discussions with Anthropic as a potential chatbot partner, according to Bloomberg 's sources. The idea is for the company to offer users a variety of AI options, similar to the search engine on the Safari browser.

Ultimately, Apple wants to make money by striking revenue-sharing deals with its AI partners, and the company believes it can make billions of dollars as users prefer chatbots and other tools over traditional search engines.

Apple’s in-house AI services are inexpensive because most of the processing is done on-device rather than in the cloud, but the company is ramping up its data center operations to support new online AI services.

For Apple Intelligence to succeed, Apple will need to expand into other languages ​​and countries. That could be a challenge in China, one of Apple’s biggest overseas markets, where services like ChatGPT and Gemini are banned. Right now, Apple Intelligence is only available in English, but the company is aiming to support more languages ​​next year.

(According to Bloomberg)