Alongside its Apple Intelligence feature set, Apple on Monday announced a partnership with OpenAI that will allow Siri to access ChatGPT directly in iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS Sequoia to provide better responses in relevant situations. But according to a new Bloomberg report, nobody is paying cash to anybody for the arrangement.
From Mark Gurman’s report:
Apple isn’t paying OpenAI as part of the partnership, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the deal terms are private. Instead, Apple believes pushing OpenAI’s brand and technology to hundreds of millions of its devices is of equal or greater value than monetary payments, these people said.
Despite the agreement, the partnership for OpenAI could become expensive, as more and more Apple device users tap into ChatGPT’s capabilities and suck up more of the company’s compute power and budget.
However, Gurman notes that OpenAI could profit from the deal by encouraging Apple users to subscribe to ChatGPT Plus for $20 a month. If these users sign up through an Apple device, Apple may also be in a position to receive a commission.
Additionally, Apple plans to increase its earnings from AI through revenue-sharing agreements with its partners. According to the report, Apple is already discussing offering Google’s Gemini chatbot as an additional option, an agreement that should be in place later this year.
Ultimately, Apple aims to take a portion of the revenue generated from monetizing chatbot results on its operating systems, anticipating that more users will rely on AI instead of search engines. Such a shift could eventually reduce the massive amounts of revenue Apple currently earns from its lucrative search deal with Google.
The report notes that Apple has yet to reach a deal with a local Chinese provider to handle chatbot feature, but has been considering an arrangement with companies such as Baidu and Alibaba. To begin with, Apple Intelligence will only be available in U.S. English, with more languages set to be supported next year.