Apple and Meta Reportedly Discussed AI Partnership for iOS 18

Apple has held discussions with Meta about integrating the Facebook owner's AI model into iOS 18 as part of its Apple Intelligence feature set, according to a report over the weekend.

Meta launched Llama 2, its large language model, in July 2023, and in April, the company released the latest versions of its AI models, called Llama 3. The Wall Street Journal reports that the two longtime rivals have held talks about offering Meta's model as an additional option to OpenAI's ChatGPT. The paywalled report notes that the discussions haven't been finalized and could fall through.

As part of Apple Intelligence, Apple has announced a partnership with OpenAI that will allow Siri to access ChatGPT directly in iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS Sequoia to provide better responses in relevant situations. Using ChatGPT will be optional, so users with concerns about the technology can abstain and still make use of Apple's own new AI features.

Speaking at WWDC 2024, Apple's senior VP of software engineering Craig Federighi said that the company eventually wants to give its users a choice between different AI models. Federighi also suggested that Google Gemini could be an option in the future.

Apple isn't paying OpenAI as part of the partnership, and WSJ reports that discussions with other AI companies have similarly taken place with the understanding that neither party will pay each other. Rather, pushing an AI model to hundreds of millions of Apple devices is considered to be of equal or greater value: AI companies get to sell premium subscriptions to their services through Apple Intelligence, while Apple is in a position to take a commission on sales.

However, it's still not clear how much of a financial windfall such deals will be for AI companies in the long term, given that a surge of users from Apple devices will undoubtedly require more of the companies' own compute power and budget.