Report: Apple Partnering With OpenAI is Raising Concerns at Microsoft
- Laurent Giret
- May 30, 2024
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Microsoft is reportedly worried about Apple striking a deal with OpenAI to incorporate the company’s AI technology into iOS 18 and macOS 15 later this year. According to a report from The Information (paywalled), the Redmond giant is concerned about the impact an Apple/OpenAI partnership could have on its services and its Azure cloud platform (via 9to5Mac).
Microsoft invested billions of dollars into OpenAI over the years, and the company currently has an exclusive license on GPT-4 and all other OpenAI models. Additionally, OpenAI chose Microsoft Azure as its primary cloud platform for developing and running its large language models at scale.
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The report from The Information reveals that Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI recently met with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella to discuss Microsoft’s concerns about Apple using OpenAI technology. With an installed base of over 2.2 billion active devices, Microsoft’s Azure cloud will need to keep up with the demand once Apple starts rolling out new OpenAI-powered features to its user base. Last week, Microsoft’s own Copilot chatbot powered by OpenAI technology was affected by a global outage that took the company hours to fix.
According to the report, Microsoft also asked OpenAI for a cut on its future profits as part of its multi-billion dollar investment into the AI startup. However, even though the yet-to-be-announced OpenAI/Apple partnership could be lucrative for Microsoft, the company may not want Apple to become the company that truly democratizes OpenAI’s technology.
Even though Microsoft’s various Copilot products – including Copilot on Windows – are already powered by OpenAI technology, Microsoft doesn’t have a mobile platform with billions of users like iOS, with a built-in digital assistant that could soon tap into OpenAI’s conversational artificial intelligence. In addition to Siri upgrades, Apple is also expected to reveal new AI-powered features for its most-used apps such as Safari and Photos during its WWDC developer conference in June.