OpenAI Is Exploring Legal Action Against Apple Over a ChatGPT Integration That Never Delivered

[cryptoenthusiast]

OpenAI has enlisted an outside law firm to explore legal options against Apple following growing frustration that a ChatGPT integration announced at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference in June 2024 has failed to deliver the subscriber growth and platform prominence OpenAI expected, Bloomberg reported Thursday. The partnership wove ChatGPT into Apple's operating systems as an option within Siri and as part of the iPhone's Visual Intelligence feature, with OpenAI anticipating the deal would eventually funnel billions of dollars in new subscriptions and give the company prime real estate across one of the world's most-used mobile ecosystems. Instead, OpenAI has grown increasingly aggravated, complaining that the integration has been buried, its features are hard to find, and that revenue from the arrangement is nowhere close to projections. "They basically said, 'OpenAI needs to take a leap of faith and trust us,'" one OpenAI executive told Bloomberg. "It didn't work out well." Any legal move would likely begin with a formal breach-of-contract notice rather than an immediate full lawsuit, and would probably wait until after OpenAI's current trial with Elon Musk concludes.Apple has its own grievances in the relationship, including concerns about OpenAI's privacy standards and reported irritation over OpenAI's hardware ambitions led by former Apple design chief Jony Ive.

The dynamic is a familiar one in Apple's partnership history: the iPhone is an enormously attractive distribution platform, but it is fully under Apple's control, and companies that build there are ultimately guests. OpenAI is hardly the first major software company to find that out under uncomfortable circumstances. Google Maps was a flagship iPhone feature until Apple replaced it with its own inferior product in 2012, prompting a rare public apology from Tim Cook. Adobe's Flash was killed on mobile by a Steve Jobs open letter. Spotify spent years in regulatory battle arguing Apple disadvantaged rivals after launching Apple Music, ultimately resulting in a nearly €1.8 billion EU fine against Apple in 2024. Google has since made peace with Apple through a reported $1 billion annual deal to power Apple Intelligence with Gemini models — demonstrating that commercial interests can eventually overcome these rifts, though the road there can be bruising.

[johnblockbuster]

ChatGPT buried in Siri limiting discovery demonstrates platform owner controlling partner's growth ceiling entirely

[johnblockbuster]

Google Maps, Flash, Spotify, now ChatGPT