Apple products will integrate with OpenAI's ChatGPT in December when iOS 18.2 is released, powering Siri and several other features with smarter AI. On Wednesday, iOS 18.2 beta testers got a taste of how OpenAI could benefit from its partnership with Apple.
According to an iOS 18.2 beta update spotted by 9to5Mac, Apple is including an option to upgrade to ChatGPT Plus within the Settings app. This will allow Apple users to sign up directly for OpenAI's premium subscription plan for $20 per month. This could lead many users to sign up for ChatGPT Plus, which is the core of OpenAI's revenue, especially since the free version of ChatGPT can be very limited.
Free ChatGPT users do not have access to premium features such as OpenAI's latest models (such as o1-preview) or advanced voice modes. You can also only create two images a day using Dall-E, and you can't send as many messages to the AI chatbot as a premium user.
The big question that remains regarding Apple and OpenAI's partnership is how both companies expect to benefit from the partnership. Apple is reportedly paying Sam Altman's startup for exposure rather than for integration.[設定]The ability to upgrade to ChatGPT Plus could be enough exposure for OpenAI to make all of this worth it, but only if users actually sign up. Otherwise, OpenAI will be exposed to a large influx of new ChatGPT free users, which will definitely increase the startup's AI inference costs.
It's also unclear whether Apple will receive a portion of the revenue OpenAI generates from ChatGPT Plus sign-ups through the Settings app. The iPhone maker may simply be betting that having cutting-edge AI capabilities is worth the exposure to OpenAI. Because OpenAI will encourage enough customers to upgrade to a new phone.
Still, this is a strange deal. Apple has included ChatGPT in many of its biggest AI updates to date, but the iPhone maker doesn't have an exclusive deal with it. Apple says it will soon integrate AI models from other developers, potentially including Google's Gemini.
In the backdrop of this consolidation, OpenAI is raising capital at an unprecedented rate and losing key executives. Apple was reportedly scheduled to participate in the latest $6.6 billion round, but pulled out shortly after OpenAI's chief technology officer Mira Murati abruptly resigned.