Apple and Meta are reportedly not in discussions over AI chatbot integration
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Apple reportedly not in talks with Meta about integrating its AI with iPhone similar to its partnership with OpenAI, citing privacy concerns.
Earlier in June, a report claimed that Apple and Meta were engaged in active discussions concerning the potential integration of Meta's AI software into Apple operating systems, but now a different Monday report claims this is not the case. Apple reportedly believed that Meta's privacy control practices were not stringent enough and that OpenAI's offerings were of better quality.
According to the report from Bloomberg, the two companies only held brief discussions regarding AI integration in March, and that said conversations never ultimately resulted in any sort of cooperation in this area. The information has been provided by anonymous people familiar with the matter.
Apple recently announced its new AI technology, known as Apple Intelligence, at WWDC 2024. As part of its AI initiative, the company made a partnership with OpenAI, allowing Siri to handle requests and pass them over to OpenAI's ChatGPT with user permission in iOS 18.
The partnership between the two companies currently does not involve any financial transactions, but Apple will supposedly allow paying customers of ChatGPT to access their respective subscriptions. Practically, this would be a source of revenue for OpenAI, while Apple would be compensated in the form of App Store commissions.
As for user privacy, Apple was able to reach a legal agreement stating that OpenAI's GhatGPT cannot collect user data, intellectual property or queries to train its AI software. Meta likely never would have agreed to such terms, which would explain why the two companies aren't in active discussions.
Apple has previously shared plans to introduce support for Google Gemini at a later date. This would supposedly build upon Apple and Google's existing partnership, which currently revolves around web searches in Safari.
Apple reportedly wants to offer its users the option to choose between different AI products in the future, similar to how users can select their preferred web browser or search engine. Discussions with AI startup Anthropic are reportedly still ongoing.
At WWDC 2024, Apple unveiled a wide variety of AI-related enhancements for its latest operating systems. Once Apple Intelligence rolls out later this year, users will be able to use AI to generate images with Image Playground, summarize notes, and transcribe audio, among other things.