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Apple products are getting an integration with OpenAI’s ChatGPT in December when iOS 18.2 rolls out, which should supercharge Siri and a few other features with smarter AI. On Wednesday, iOS 18.2 beta testers got a taste of how OpenAI could profit off of its Apple partnership.
Apple is including an option to upgrade to ChatGPT Plus inside its Settings app, according to an update to the iOS 18.2 beta spotted by 9to5Mac. This will give Apple users a direct route to sign up for OpenAI’s premium subscription plan, which costs $20 a month. This could drive lots of users to sign up for ChatGPT Plus, a core revenue driver for OpenAI, especially because the free version of ChatGPT can be quite limited.
Free ChatGPT users won’t have access to OpenAI’s latest models (such as o1-preview) or premium features such as Advanced Voice Mode. They also can only make two images with Dall-E per day, and can’t send as many messages to the AI chatbot as premium users.
A big lingering question in Apple and OpenAI’s partnership is how both companies expect to make money off the deal. Apple reportedly isn’t paying Sam Altman’s startup for the integration in money, but rather, exposure. The ability to upgrade to ChatGPT Plus in Settings might be enough exposure that this whole thing is worth it for OpenAI, but only if users actually sign up. Otherwise, OpenAI will be on the hook for a large influx of new ChatGPT free users, which will undoubtedly drive up the startup’s AI inference costs.
It’s also unclear whether Apple is taking a cut of the revenue OpenAI generates from ChatGPT Plus signups through the Settings app. It’s possible the iPhone maker is simply betting that having cutting-edge AI features is worth the exposure for OpenAI, because it will push enough customers to upgrade to new phones.
Nevertheless, this is a strange deal. Even though Apple is letting ChatGPT power many of its biggest AI updates yet, the iPhone maker isn’t making this an exclusive deal. Apple says it will soon integrate AI models from other developers, potentially including Google’s Gemini.
In the background of this integration, OpenAI is raising money and losing key executives at an unprecedented rate. Apple was reportedly supposed to participate in the latest $6.6 billion round, but pulled out shortly after OpenAI’s CTO Mira Murati abruptly left the company.
Maxwell Zeff is a senior reporter at TechCrunch specializing in AI and emerging technologies. Previously with Gizmodo, Bloomberg, and MSNBC, Zeff has covered the rise of AI and the Silicon Valley Bank crisis. He is based in San Francisco. When not reporting, he can be found hiking, biking, and exploring the Bay Area’s food scene.
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