Microsoft would be worried. The prospect of a major agreement between OpenAI and Apple would cause concern for the American publisher whose servers run ChatGPT. The group also fears a resurgence of competition around AI…
For months, rumors have suggested thatApple has moved closer to OpenAI, the startup behind ChatGPT. The Cupertino giant would like to exploit OpenAI technology, namely the essential GPT language model, to give a boost to Siri, the iPhone voice assistant.
The fruits of this agreement, which was concluded recently, could be discussed during the WWDC 2024, Apple’s annual developer gathering. This new Siri improved thanks to generative AI would debut in the fall, with the update of iOS 18 That’s exactly Mark Gurman, the Bloomberg journalist, who is inexhaustible about the plans for Apple.
Microsoft is voicing its concerns
The prospect of an agreement between OpenAI and Apple would start working Microsoft’s concerns, the historic partner of the startup behind ChatGPT. The Redmond giant has injected billions of dollars into the startup over the past few years, starting in 2019. With this long-term partnership, Microsoft has been able to integrate generative AI into its products, starting with Bing. For its part, OpenAI can rely on Microsoft’s huge data centers to run ChatGPT, whose needs are all consuming.
According to The Information, the discussions between Apple and OpenAI, which have been going on since the middle of last year, are not to Microsoft’s liking. The software company is worried abouta strong explosion in the pressure exerted on its servers if Apple integrates ChatGPT in its devices. There are over two billion active Apple devices worldwide. There is no doubt that the arrival of ChatGPT to these terminals should increase the pressure exerted on Microsoft’s servers dedicated to AI.
Above all, Microsoft believes that Apple will find itself in direct competition with its own AI-enriched products, namely Copilot. According to The Information, Apple wants to connect Siri to ChatGPT, which would allow the voice assistant to better answer the questions of its interlocutors. Thanks to OpenAI’s AI, Siri would be more natural, smoother and smarter. It could also provide real-time translations, similar to ChatGPT 4o.
Aware of Microsoft’s concerns, Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, recently met with the head of the American group, Satya Nadella. In fact, Microsoft in particular wants to receive a share of the revenue generated by OpenAI thanks to these agreements. For the moment, we do not know where the discussions between the two actors stand.
Unlike Microsoft, Apple does not intend to rely entirely on ChatGPT. To handle the simplest tasks locally, without resorting to remote servers, Apple would rely on its own language models. Tim Cook’s company has actually developed its own AI model, called Ajax. Unsurprisingly, Apple would like AI to be able to handle as many tasks as possible on devices, without having to connect to servers, for privacy reasons.
In addition, Apple would also have close to google with the hope of using Gemini, the alternative to ChatGPT. The Californian company is also said to be in talks with the search giant. Apple is said to be working to keep Google on board as an alternative, despite its deal with OpenAI. According to Mark Gurman, Apple has also reached out to other companies in the AI race, starting with Anthropic, the company behind the Claude chat. As always, Apple does not want to depend on a single partner. We’ll have to wait until WWDC 2034, which starts on June 10, 2024, to learn more about Apple’s AI plans.