Updated at 11:30 p.m. ET: Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman claims that Apple ended these discussions months ago.
Apple is late to the AI party, and when it finally announced its own Apple Intelligence offering earlier this month, the company tacitly acknowledged as much by announcing that it was considering partnering with more established players in the market. Apple has built its own AI model, but it plans to outsource specialized or advanced tasks to third-party models.
Initially, that will mean OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which Apple considers the leader in generative AI and “the best choice for our users today,” according to Craig Federighi. But the company has made it clear that other names will also be offered. And that has led to some surprising potential partnerships, like a collaboration with Facebook parent company Meta.
According to a Wall Street Journal article published this weekend, citing “people familiar with the matter”, Apple and Meta have indeed discussed an AI partnership. This isn’t finalized yet and could still fail, the WSJ notes, but the signs are promising: Apple would like Meta’s expertise, and Meta would like access to Apple’s enormous user base.
However, a report from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman a day later claims that Apple rejected Meta’s proposal months ago and apparently has no plans to return to the table. The two companies reportedly had “preliminary talks,” but these never progressed.
Such an arrangement would involve integrating Meta Platforms’ generative AI model into Apple Intelligence on iPhone, iPad and Mac, although it appears users will be asked for consent before the various third-party AI models d Apple Intelligence is not brought into play. In addition to Meta AI and ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini and Microsoft’s Copilot are expected to be integrated at some point.
As unlikely as a Google/Apple partnership may seem, a deal with Meta is even more surprising given the acrimonious relations between the companies, typically centered around their differing (to put it mildly) approaches to user privacy. After Apple allowed iPhone owners to block advertiser tracking, Facebook responded with full-page ads in the US press, complaining about the changes and saying they would “harm many of our developers and publishers to an already difficult time for businesses.” But this was not an isolated dispute; the companies’ philosophies are so radically different that they have been throwing jabs at each other for more than a decade, as CNBC explains.
Such disputes are unlikely to end simply because of a potential AI team-up; Tech companies are remarkably good at arguing hard with a rival while partnering in a way that benefits both. (Apple and Samsung continued to work together as their famous patent disputes wound through the court system.) What will be interesting is how the partnership works in terms of privacy and data collection, none of which both unwilling to compromise on its operating principles. Apple owns the platform and will therefore likely have the last word.
Apple Intelligence will arrive this fall in iOS 18, iPadOS 18 and macOS 15.
