OpenAI feels “burned” by Apple’s crappy ChatGPT integration, insiders say

OpenAI is reportedly exploring legal options after Apple’s ChatGPT integration into its products didn’t live up to the AI firm’s expectations.

When the deal was announced, Apple likened features linking Siri to ChatGPT to its now-infamous deal embedding Google search in the Safari browser, insiders granted anonymity to discuss the “strained” partnership told Bloomberg. And the promise of that excited OpenAI, which expected the deal “could generate billions of dollars per year in subscriptions,” an OpenAI executive granted anonymity to discuss the partnership told Bloomberg.

Instead, OpenAI suspects Apple intentionally failed to promote the integration and fears that the deal may have damaged the ChatGPT brand, sources said.

Specifically, OpenAI hates how Apple designed the integration, sources said. Particularly bad was the choice forcing Apple users summoning Siri to also “specifically invoke the word ‘ChatGPT’ when speaking or typing a command,” sources said. That makes it harder for users to access the features, OpenAI apparently feels. And Apple’s other choices, like using small windows providing limited information when responding with ChatGPT outputs, seems to ensure that users can easily ignore the features, sources said.

As the OpenAI executive explained, Apple didn’t fully explain how the integration would work when the deal came together, so OpenAI took a “leap of faith” it now appears to regret.

“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,” the executive said, attempting to explain why OpenAI was willing to enter the arrangement blind. Since then, efforts to renegotiate the deal have “stalled,” Reuters reported. And, supposedly due to feeling “burned,” OpenAI has declined to enter other partnerships to work on Apple’s AI models, Bloomberg reported.

According to the insiders, OpenAI is so disappointed in Apple’s work that the AI firm is now “actively working with an outside legal firm on a range of options that could be formally executed in the near future.”

“We have done everything from a product perspective,” the OpenAI executive summed up OpenAI’s frustrations to Bloomberg. “They have not, and worse, they haven’t even made an honest effort.”