OpenAI collaborates with Apple, Microsoft is very unhappy

OpenAI collaborates with Apple, benefiting each other, but Microsoft is starting to worry.

According to the tech media The Information, Apple had been in contact with OpenAI as early as mid-2023, while Microsoft is concerned about the collaboration between the two companies.

Apple's WWDC 2024 developer conference will be held at 1 a.m. on June 11th Beijing time. Prior to this, there were reports that Apple has reached a cooperation agreement with OpenAI and plans to integrate ChatGPT into the upcoming iOS 18 system. The collaboration is expected to be officially announced at the conference.

This is undoubtedly a mutually beneficial cooperation for both parties. OpenAI will gain access to billions of Apple mobile device customers, further expanding its market, while Apple, with the support of ChatGPT, will enhance the intelligence level of the iOS system.

However, Microsoft, which has invested billions of dollars in OpenAI, is not happy. The improvement of its competitor's AI capabilities may harm its market share in the AI market.

Apple and OpenAI have been negotiating for a year

The report pointed out that Apple's machine learning team members began to contact OpenAI CEO Altman and his employees around the time of the WWDC 2023 conference.

In the same year, Apple signed an agreement with OpenAI, allowing Apple employees to access OpenAI's API for internal testing.

During the related tests, Apple engineers connected ChatGPT with Siri, significantly improving Siri's processing capabilities, enabling it to better understand the context of what users are saying.

Insiders familiar with the matter stated that the company is focusing on using OpenAI technology to enable Siri to answer more complex questions, even turning it into a chatbot. OpenAI showed Apple how Siri can become more responsive, natural, quickly translate languages, search for useful information, or provide entertainment for users.

Most importantly, Apple products will use OpenAI's conversational artificial intelligence technology. If all goes well, this could bring in billions of dollars in revenue for this AI startup, and cooperating with Apple is also expected to enhance OpenAI's position in the tech industry in the long term.

OpenAI and its colleagues hope that this collaboration will one day replace Apple's long-standing alliance with Google, one of OpenAI's main competitors. Currently, Google dominates Apple's Safari search function, which is crucial for maintaining its search engine monopoly.

Collaboration between the two raises concerns among Microsoft executives

However, at the same time, the collaboration between Apple and OpenAI has also raised concerns among Microsoft executives.

Microsoft hopes to use OpenAI's technology to penetrate the consumer market, not just the enterprise market, and the deal between OpenAI and Apple may jeopardize these opportunities as Apple's AI capabilities will directly compete with Microsoft. However, from a positive perspective, Microsoft may earn more money from its collaboration with Apple and OpenAI, as Microsoft will gain more cloud computing revenue.

Altman recently met with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella to discuss concerns about how Microsoft's deal with Apple could impact the cloud software giant's own products. For example, Microsoft is worried about how to handle the demand on servers when Apple introduces new features for iPhone and iPad users