Apple is in talks to invest big bucks into OpenAI as part of an upcoming funding round.
According to sources at the Wall Street Journal, OpenAI — known for its AI assistant ChatGPT — has been in talks with Apple, Nvidia, and Microsoft about a funding round that could value the company at $100 billion. The article also highlights how Microsoft, already a major partner of OpenAI, is looking to invest even more in the company. 'It couldn’t be learned how much Apple or Microsoft will invest into OpenAI this round. To date, Microsoft has been the primary strategic investor in OpenAI. It owns a 49% share of the AI startup’s profits after investing $13 billion since 2019."
The timing of this impending funding round is curious. ChatGPT is set to be integrated into Apple's assistant, Siri, as part of iOS 18.1, iPadOS 18.1, and macOS Sequoia 15.1 when these are released as part of Apple Intelligence later this year. Once available, Siri will prompt the user if they want to use ChatGPT to help answer a query.
If Apple goes ahead with this investment into OpenAI, we could see ChatGPT be part of Siri for the foreseeable future, potentially leading to new features in the coming years.
How will ChatGPT work in iOS 18?
Showcased at WWDC in June, Apple's yearly developer conference, ChatGPT won't require users to create an account in order to use it with Siri. Instead, OpenAI's assistant will appear when Siri needs help with answering a query.
But that's not all that this integration will offer. Apple Intelligence will include Writing Tools, enabling users to rewrite an email or a report into distinct styles, such as casual or professional. ChatGPT will help with this through an overlay that will let you choose between these styles.
Although the latest betas of iOS 18.1, iPadOS 18.1, and macOS Sequoia 15.1 come with Apple Intelligence to test, ChatGPT integration is not yet available. However, it's expected to arrive with these updates later this year.
