OpenAI has not partnered with Apple as it prepares its AI device - FT

OpenAI "consciously made a decision not to become a custom vendor for Apple" back in the fall of 2025, a source close to the startup told the Financial Times. Instead, the ChatGPT developer has decided to focus on building its own artificial intelligence-based device to reach beyond the ecosystems of major tech players, the publication writes. OpenAI did not respond to the FT's request for comment.

On Monday, Apple signed a deal with Google that will see the Gemini model integrated into its Siri assistant. "This is a merger of two traditional players, which is logical for them," the FT interlocutor added.

Nevertheless, analysts polled by the FT believe the new Apple and Google deal is a blow to OpenAI, which has been integrating ChatGPT into the "Apple Intelligence" feature on iPhone devices since 2024, hoping to gain access to an audience of many millions. Apple itself has said that the partnership with Google will not affect its existing ChatGPT integration, but analysts believe its future is in question.

"I think the ChatGPT integration will just languish ... having two major language models in Apple's ecosystem hardly makes sense given the economies of scale," Gene Munster of Deepwater Asset Management told the FT. He estimated that the Google contract could cost Tim Cook's company up to $5 billion, although Bloomberg previously estimated the deal at $1 billion a year.

Munster also suggested that OpenAI's ambitions to create its own AI devices, potentially competing with the iPhone, may have influenced Apple's decision to move to a closer partnership with Google.

Now that Google's AI models will run on the vast majority of the world's smartphones, both iPhone and Android, the company is effectively rethinking the future of search itself, rather than waiting for a competitor like OpenAI to make the transformation, Yahoo Finance notes. The agreement with Apple solidified Google's lead in the fast-paced AI race, the publication said. On the day the contract was announced, Alphabet's market capitalization exceeded 4 trillion for the first time.

"This is a major loss for OpenAI," DA Davidson analyst Gil Luria told Yahoo Finance. - The fact that it didn't get a contract with Apple seriously sets the company back."

Hedgeye Risk Management analyst Andrew Friedman also called it a game changer. "This is a deal that sets a vector. It lays the groundwork for Google to continue to dominate," he stressed, characterizing the situation as "a blow to OpenAI." "As Gemini continues to gain popularity and be used as a universal language model, it certainly poses a threat to OpenAI and makes it harder for it to compete for market share," Friedman added in a conversation with Yahoo Finance.

In May 2025, former Apple chief designer Jony Ive joined OpenAI to develop a new AI device. It has also been reported that OpenAI is actively poaching hardware specialists and Apple's component manufacturing partners, Seeking Alpha writes.

Despite "consciously abandoning" its role as a model vendor, OpenAI is still an Apple partner. In June 2024, Apple announced the integration of ChatGPT into Siri at its developer conference. In addition, OpenAI technologies were incorporated into Visual Intelligence, a Google Lens counterpart that allows iPhone users to recognize objects around them.

This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor