When you weren’t paying shut consideration to Apple‘s WWDC 2025 keynote, it was straightforward to overlook one of many extra notable tales out of the occasion. For a convention the place it goals to indicate itself as an innovator, this 12 months Apple appeared prefer it was out of recent concepts. Whether or not it was digging up old design concepts or sherlocking even more third-party apps, we noticed an organization depending on the work of others. However nowhere was that dependence extra putting than the one Apple now has with OpenAI.
For lots of the new Apple Intelligence options the corporate introduced on Monday, it was fast to notice customers might flip to OpenAI’s fashions, as a substitute of its personal in-house techniques, to hold out a job. Do not just like the portraits of your mates Picture Playground is producing? ChatGPT might help. How concerning the evaluation supplied by Visible Intelligence? If Apple’s mannequin is not doing it for you, ChatGPT can help there, too.
These are simply two examples. There are others. OpenAI’s fashions are additionally accessible by means of the up to date Shortcuts app, and, maybe most notably, within the new model of Apple’s Xcode app growth suite. In actual fact, in line with Engadget managing editor Cherlynn Low, who was on the bottom in Cupertino, the information that ChatGPT would come constructed straight in Xcode bought one of many loudest cheers of the presentation.
All of it felt like an admission by Apple that its personal AI fashions, even the extra personal, on-device one it will make accessible to builders by means of a brand new framework, aren’t as much as snuff. Apple’s dependence on OpenAI isn’t new. ChatGPT has been an integral a part of Apple Intelligence because the begin, however what’s stunning is how a lot deeper that dependence has grow to be.
Earlier than Monday, all of us knew the corporate was behind within the AI race. At WWDC 2025, Apple supplied few reassurances it will catch up anytime quickly. For example, it had nearly nothing to say concerning the extra personalized Siri it previewed eventually 12 months’s convention.
“As we have shared, we’re persevering with our work to ship the options that make Siri much more private,” stated Craig Federighi, the corporate’s senior vice chairman of software program engineering. “This work wanted extra time to achieve our high-quality bar, and we look ahead to sharing extra about it within the coming 12 months.”
The time-frame of “within the coming 12 months” would counsel the brand new Siri might not arrive earlier than the beginning of 2026 on the earliest. Six months to a 12 months is an eternity within the tech world, particularly when Apple’s opponents are transferring so rapidly.
As if to punctuate issues, OpenAI introduced on Saturday it had begun rolling out an update to Advanced Voice that offers ChatGPT extra refined intonation, life like cadence and expressiveness. These are all upgrades that Siri might use.
In fact, the irony that Apple ought to select to show to OpenAI for assist in the AI race is one nearly definitely not misplaced on anybody at both firm.
In Could, OpenAI introduced it was buying Jony Ive’s io hardware startup (for a reported $6.5 billion) to help its ambition to construct an AI machine. In an interview with The New York Times concerning the acquisition, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman did not explicitly point out Ive’s former employer, however he was clearly desirous about Apple and the iPhone all through the dialog. “We have been ready for the following large factor for 20 years,” he stated at one level. “We wish to convey individuals one thing past the legacy merchandise we’ve been utilizing for thus lengthy.”
The actual fact the AI units we have seen up to now, together with the AI Pin and R1, have not been successful, doesn’t imply Apple is protected from disruption. For one, the pedigree of OpenAI and Jony Ive (even in case you embrace misses just like the MacBook Professional with its horrible butterfly keyboard) surpass that of Humane and Rabbit. One of many individuals that’s now working for OpenAI as a part of the io deal embrace Evans Hankey, who was Apple’s head of {hardware} design for 3 years after Ive’s departure from the corporate.
You may make the argument that Apple has discovered itself in comparable conditions earlier than and are available out unscathed. For years, the corporate has relied on Google to supply entry to a search engine to its customers (and Maps earlier than that), however this feels completely different to me. What is going on on within the AI business does not play to the corporate’s traditional strengths. The expertise is transferring quicker than Apple’s annual launch schedule, with new, extra highly effective fashions being introduced nearly each week. It is not an area the place the corporate can depend on its traditional technique of ready for others to work out the wrinkles earlier than it dives in itself.
It is too early to know if Apple’s partnership with OpenAI will in the end harm the tech big, nevertheless it’s protected to say OpenAI is not content material with being merely a supporting participant. Apple continues to be one of many wealthiest firms on the earth, with billions of {dollars} of money readily available — however being so depending on OpenAI is a uncommon signal of vulnerability in an important a part of the tech business.
