When Craig Federighi demonstrated Siri calling ChatGPT at last year's WWDC, the applause was enthusiastic. OpenAI executives probably thought this was the shortcut to putting ChatGPT in a billion iPhone users' hands.
A year later, that shortcut has become a dead end.
According to Bloomberg, OpenAI is hiring outside counsel to seriously evaluate legal action against Apple. The reason is simple: Apple made the ChatGPT integration as inconspicuous as possible.
What Apple Did That Upset OpenAI
Three things specifically.
First, after waking Siri, users must additionally say or type "ChatGPT" to trigger the integration. Siri doesn't automatically decide when to use ChatGPT — the user has to explicitly invoke it. This means most Siri users never encounter ChatGPT at all.
Second, ChatGPT's output is squeezed into a small window with limited information, easily overlooked. Not fullscreen, not deeply integrated — a popup-level presence.
Third, Apple never seriously promoted the feature. No dedicated landing page, no sustained marketing after WWDC, no inclusion in the core Apple Intelligence narrative.
An OpenAI executive's exact words: "We have done everything from a product perspective. They have not, and worse, they haven't even made an honest effort."
Not "Couldn't Do It" — "Didn't Want To"
Behind OpenAI's frustration is a key judgment: Apple wasn't incapable — it deliberately did this.
The original agreement didn't specify how Apple needed to promote ChatGPT. OpenAI says it took "a leap of faith." Looking back now, that faith may have been misplaced.
Apple's logic isn't hard to guess. Apple Intelligence is Apple's own AI brand, and the ChatGPT integration was always a transitional compromise — a usable LLM to hold the fort while Apple's own models weren't ready. Now Apple is testing integrations with Anthropic's Claude and Google Gemini, and ChatGPT's exclusivity is being diluted.
For Apple, downplaying ChatGPT's presence aligns perfectly with its own interests.
What Legal Options Exist
The report mentions breach of contract claims as a possible route. This doesn't necessarily mean filing a lawsuit immediately, but it would put formal pressure on both sides.
But OpenAI will likely wait for the Musk vs. OpenAI case to resolve first. A ruling could come as soon as next week.
Ironically, the deterioration of the OpenAI-Apple relationship may actually make Musk's lawsuit harder to sustain. Musk's core argument is that OpenAI and Apple are colluding to maintain Apple's smartphone dominance — if OpenAI is suing Apple, that argument collapses.
Musk's claims about ChatGPT "exclusivity" are also crumbling. Apple is testing Siri integrations with Claude and Gemini. Exclusivity no longer exists.
Apple's Next Move
Bloomberg reports that Apple is expected to unveil a redesigned Siri at WWDC in June, which may promote the ChatGPT integration more prominently, potentially addressing some of OpenAI's concerns.
But this is more of a tactical concession. The OpenAI-Apple partnership has fundamentally shifted — from "strategic partner" down to "one of many vendors."
My Take
The most ironic part of this story: everyone thought the OpenAI-Apple partnership was win-win. Now it looks like a classic Silicon Valley marriage — both sides had hidden agendas, one needed technology to look good, the other needed a user gateway. Turns out their core interests were never aligned.
For OpenAI, the biggest lesson may not be legal but strategic: relying on a platform's distribution channel always carries the risk of being marginalized. OpenAI is reportedly working on its own phone hardware. That's probably not a coincidence.
For Apple, multi-model integration is the right direction, but how to manage relationships with these model companies — as partners or replaceable components — will become sharper as AI's role in phones grows.
Primary sources: Bloomberg reporting, Ars Technica compilation