OpenAI is preparing possible legal action against Apple, including a potential breach of contract notice, over its two-year-old ChatGPT integration partnership, which failed to meet its expectations, according to Bloomberg sources.
OpenAI believed that the companies' partnership would encourage more users to subscribe to ChatGPT, and expected a deeper integration across more Apple apps and prominent placement within Siri, but says none of that happened. The company claims that Apple designed the integration in a way that requires users to speak or type the word “ChatGPT” when entering a command into Siri in order to get results from OpenAI, and that responses have been more constrained than those available through ChatGPT's standalone app, appearing in a small window with limited information.
To make matters worse, OpenAI is set to lose its unique role within Apple software when iOS 27 launches on June 8 with chatbots from Anthropic and Google joining the platform through its upcoming Extensions feature. Not to mention, the deal that Apple made with Google last year to power Siri with Gemini models, an arrangement that OpenAI was also bidding for.
I've got to rant for a second because this is ridiculous…
1) Apple required users to speak or type the word ‘ChatGPT' to call its chatbot.
Do you mean the exact same way that ChatGPT requires users to type “@Etsy” or “@Expedia” to call apps within their ecosystem?
2) “We have done everything from a product perspective. They have not, and worse, they haven’t even made an honest effort,” said an unnamed OpenAI executive.
Have you, OpenAI? Because during this 2024-2026 window that you partnered with Apple, you pretty much handed a healthy chunk of your market share to Anthropic and Google, you pissed off half your userbase by retiring their favorite model, and your chatbot (allegedly) contributed to multiple deaths via suicide, mass shootings, and otherwise. Are those indications that you've “done everything from a product perspective?” Or have your users and the market said otherwise?
3) OpenAI said it isn't interested in working with Apple on new models because it felt burned by the initial relationship. The unnamed executive said, “We already took this leap of faith with you, and it didn't work out well.”
Do you mean, the same leap of faith that Stripe, Shopify, Etsy, and other companies took on you to develop Instant Checkout, which you scrapped without a moment's hesitation?
On top of all that, OpenAI acquired a devices startup co-founded by former Apple design chief Jony Ive and has actively recruited engineers from Apple's hardware team with multi-million dollar compensation packages, with plans to release its own phone. Yet Apple is to blame for the relationship going sour? Good grief…
