OpenAI reportedly weighs legal action against Apple

OpenAI is reportedly exploring legal action against Apple, according to Bloomberg News on Thursday. The company has enlisted an outside law firm to evaluate its options, which could include sending Apple a formal breach-of-contract notice.

The friction stems from OpenAI’s disappointment with the performance and revenue of the ChatGPT integration, which was announced at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference in June 2024. The partnership wove ChatGPT into Apple’s operating systems as an option within Siri and as part of the iPhone’s camera-based Visual Intelligence feature. OpenAI expected the deal to drive significant subscription revenue and give the company prime real estate across one of the world’s most-used mobile ecosystems. Instead, the integration has reportedly been buried, with features hard to find. “They basically said, ‘OpenAI needs to take a leap of faith and trust us,’” one OpenAI executive told Bloomberg News, adding that the arrangement did not work out well. Apple, for its part, is concerned about OpenAI’s privacy standards and is irritated by OpenAI’s push into hardware, an effort led by former Apple design chief Jony Ive.

This tension mirrors Apple’s history of embracing and then alienating partners. In 2012, Apple removed Google Maps from the iPhone—which debuted in 2007—replacing it with its own product, leading to a public apology from CEO Tim Cook. This followed years of building rivalry after Google’s then-CEO Eric Schmidt stepped down from Apple’s board in 2009. Similarly, Steve Jobs published an open letter in 2010 regarding Flash, effectively dooming Adobe’s technology on mobile. Spotify also spent years arguing that Apple leveraged its App Store control to disadvantage rival services after launching Apple Music in 2015. This led the European Commission, the EU’s antitrust regulator, to fine Apple nearly €1.8 billion in March 2024. Yet, commercial interests can still align: Apple struck a multiyear deal with Google in January, paying Google roughly $1 billion a year for AI infrastructure.

Any legal move against Apple would likely wait until after the conclusion of OpenAI’s ongoing lawsuit with Elon Musk. That separate trial centers on accusations that OpenAI is abandoning its nonprofit founding mission and operating in bad faith.

Why it matters

This situation highlights the inherent tension between Apple’s “walled garden” control and the ambitions of its AI partners, suggesting that even major tech players are not immune to the platform’s restrictive dynamics.