Apple could get OpenAI board seat as part of new deal - report

New Apple-OpenAI partnership isn’t a financial arrangement – at least for now

Apple is reportedly set to get a seat at ChatGPT company OpenAI’s board as part of a landmark deal announced last month.

Apple’s former marketing chief and head of App Store, Phil Schiller, was chosen as its representative for the OpenAI board, Bloomberg reported.

Mr Schiller has so far not attended any of the board’s meetings and the new arrangement could start from some time later this year.

As part of the deal, he would reportedly get to attend board meetings as an observer, but will not be able to vote or act as a director.

This would help Apple learn more about the inner workings of OpenAI and help incorporate artificial intelligence into its devices and features like Siri.

The latest move comes as Apple signed a major deal earlier in June which would bring OpenAI’s ChatGPT AI chatbot to all its devices.

Apple has held that in the future, AI models trained to be experts in specific fields are likely to become more common.

“We wanted to start with the best, and we think ChatGPT from OpenAI and their new 4o model represents the best choice for our users today,” the tech giant’s senior vice president of software engineering, Craig Federighi, said last month.

“We think ultimately, people are going to have a preference perhaps for certain models that they want to use – maybe one that is great for creative writing, or one they prefer for coding, and so we want to enable users ultimately to bring the model of their choice,” Mr Federighi said.

The OpenAI integration is part of Apple’s overall AI strategy, including the honing of its own in-house artificial intelligence features which it calls Apple Intelligence.

This would include new AI features, such as those to summarise articles and notifications, ways to create custom emojis and images, as well as tools to transcribe voice memos.

Apple chief Tim Cook said the company’s moves to integrate AI would combine “the power of generative models with personal context to deliver intelligence that’s incredibly useful and relevant to users”.

While Apple is reportedly not set to profit monetarily yet from this deal, the tech giant could get a cut from the ChatGPT subscriptions made via its platforms.

OpenAI on the other hand would get more access to hundreds of millions of potential Apple users. Microsoft had also made a similar deal last year to be a non-voting observer in OpenAI’s board.