OpenAI is eyeing legal action after the Fruity Cargo Cult Apple let its ChatGPT iPhone deal drift into corporate treacle.
According to the Financial Times the start-up is considering its legal options over what it sees as Job’s Mob’s lack of progress on its 2024 agreement, according to people familiar with the matter.
OpenAI was concerned about a “pattern of behaviour from Apple showing no interest in investing required resources to deliver on the promise of the partnership They are focused solely on extracting a tax for their market position. ”
Job’s Mob has stayed on the sidelines while its Big Tech chums pour hundreds of billions of dollars into AI models and infrastructure. Instead, it has been cutting deals to serve third-party models to more than a billion Apple fanboys.
The tension between Job’s Mob and OpenAI follows the hardware giant’s earlier this year partnership with Google to use Gemini AI models. Those models were meant to power the ironically titled Apple Intelligence.
The announcement was widely seen as a snub to OpenAI, which was the first AI company to partner with Job’s Mob. That partnership allowed Job’s Mob’s users to access ChatGPT results when submitting queries to Siri. It integrated the AI chatbot into Job’s Mob’s writing tools.
OpenAI is frustrated that Job’s Mob has not done more to integrate and promote its AI tools for iPhone users. Job’s Mob is expected to announce operating system updates later this year that will let users plug into several third-party AI models.
OpenAI has meanwhile poached talent from Job’s Mob’s AI team. OpenAI hired the Fruity Cargo Cult Apple’s former design chief, Sir Jony Ive, to work on a new device, which could end up competing with the iPhone.
