Apple Ditches OpenAI for Google in Siri Overhaul

Apple's high-profile collaboration with OpenAI to bring generative AI to iPhones 'dramatically underperformed' after its introduction in 2024, according to newly disclosed court filings.

The records reveal internal tensions behind the alliance and provide OpenAI's first public account of the tie-up. In its legal filings, the AI company expressed disappointment over weak engagement from iPhone owners after striking a landmark agreement for ChatGPT to backstop 'Apple Intelligence' in 2024.

The court documents show that rolling out the tool across hundreds of millions of devices yielded little measurable commercial upside. OpenAI anticipated a substantial brand 'halo effect' and a sharp rise in paid subscriptions, but just four weeks after rollout, the integration got off to a sluggish start, forcing the company to downgrade its internal forecasts for weekly active users.

The filings also reveal that Apple set the ChatGPT integration to 'off' by default, requiring iPhone users to navigate a multi-step sequence within system settings to turn the feature on. This reportedly stifled widespread adoption and led OpenAI management to grow anxious that Apple would seek alternate technological partners to accelerate delivery.