OpenAI is reportedly preparing legal action against Apple over failed ChatGPT integration

At a glance:

• OpenAI is exploring legal action against Apple, including a possible breach-of-contract notice, over a ChatGPT integration that failed to deliver expected subscribers and visibility.
• The partnership, announced at WWDC in June 2024, embedded ChatGPT into Siri and the iPhone's Visual Intelligence feature, but OpenAI says the integration has been buried and revenue is far below projections.
• OpenAI is hardly the first company to feel burned by Apple — Google Maps, Adobe Flash, and Spotify all clashed with Apple over platform control, and Google has since replaced OpenAI as Apple's AI backbone.

What's driving OpenAI's legal threat

OpenAI has grown so frustrated with Apple over the ChatGPT integration that it is now actively exploring legal action against the iPhone maker, Bloomberg News reported Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter. The company has enlisted an outside law firm to work through its options, which could include sending Apple a formal breach-of-contract notice — though a full lawsuit is not expected immediately. Any legal move would likely wait until after the conclusion of OpenAI's ongoing trial with Elon Musk.

The partnership was announced at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference in June 2024 and wove ChatGPT into Apple's operating systems as an option within Siri and as part of the iPhone's Visual Intelligence feature, which allows users to point their camera at surroundings and send photos to ChatGPT with related questions. OpenAI and industry watchers expected the deal to eventually funnel billions of dollars in new subscriptions its way and give the company prime real estate across one of the world's most-used mobile ecosystems. Instead, Bloomberg reports, OpenAI has grown increasingly aggravated, complaining that the integration has been buried, its features hard to find, and that revenue from the tie-up is nowhere close to projections. "They basically said, 'OpenAI needs to take a leap of faith and trust us,'" one OpenAI executive told Bloomberg. "It didn't work out well."

Apple's side of the story

Apple, for its part, has its own grievances with the partnership. According to Bloomberg, the company has raised concerns about OpenAI's privacy standards — a sensitive topic for a brand that markets itself heavily on user privacy. Apple is also reportedly irritated over OpenAI's push into hardware, an effort led by former Apple executives, including ex-design chief Jony Ive. The idea of an AI company staffed by former Apple talent building its own devices adds another layer of tension to what was already a fragile arrangement.

The dynamic illustrates a recurring power asymmetry in Apple's partnerships: the iPhone is an enormously attractive platform for growth, but it is fully under Apple's control, and companies that build there are only guests. When those guests start to overstay their welcome — or, worse, compete with Apple's own ambitions — the relationship can turn quickly.

A long history of burned partners

OpenAI is far from the first company to regret hitching its wagon to Apple. The most famous case is Google Maps, which was a flagship feature of the original iPhone and so central to the device's appeal that its removal in 2012 — replaced by Apple's markedly inferior Apple Maps product — became one of the biggest tech fiascos of the decade, prompting a rare public apology from CEO Tim Cook. The friction between the two companies had been building for years, fueled by the rollout of Google's Android phone a year after the iPhone's 2007 debut. After Google's then-CEO Eric Schmidt stepped down from Apple's board in 2009, the rivalry only intensified.

Adobe carries its own scar tissue from Apple. Steve Jobs famously refused to support Flash on the iPhone and iPad, publishing a widely circulated open letter in 2010 explaining his position and effectively dooming the technology on mobile. Flash never recovered its footing on smartphones or tablets after that.

Then there is Spotify, which spent years arguing that Apple leveraged its control over the App Store to disadvantage rival music streaming services after launching Apple Music in 2015. The European Commission sided with Spotify, fining Apple nearly €1.8 billion in March 2024 for anticompetitive conduct related to its App Store rules.

What comes next

Sometimes these rifts can be mended in the name of commercial interest. Google, the most famous Apple Maps casualty, is now Apple's AI infrastructure partner, having struck a multiyear deal in January to power the next generation of Apple Intelligence with Gemini models. Apple is reportedly paying Google roughly $1 billion a year for the arrangement — a figure that likely stings for OpenAI, which had hoped to fill exactly that role.

Meanwhile, OpenAI has its own share of strained relationships to manage. Elon Musk's lawsuit against the company — which accuses OpenAI of abandoning its nonprofit founding mission and operating in bad faith — is currently at trial, adding legal and reputational pressure on top of the Apple dispute. The company has also reportedly navigated tensions with Microsoft, its biggest backer and infrastructure partner, as it pushes for greater independence ahead of its own IPO ambitions. Balancing all of these competing interests while trying to extract value from the Apple ecosystem will be OpenAI's challenge in the months ahead.