Source: Wall Street See
Did Apple 'freeload' on OpenAI? According to reports, in the cooperation agreement between the two companies, Apple did not directly pay any fees or rewards to OpenAI.
At the highly anticipated WWDC on Monday, Apple announced a milestone collaboration with OpenAI, integrating the ChatGPT chatbot into iPhone, iPad, and Mac devices.
However, the financial terms of the partnership were not disclosed by either party, leading to widespread speculation.
On Thursday local time, media outlets cited insider sources claiming that the collaboration between Apple and OpenAI will not bring meaningful revenue to either party, at least initially.
According to reports, Apple did not directly pay any fees or rewards to OpenAI in their collaborative agreement. Instead, Apple believes that integrating ChatGPT into hundreds of millions of Apple devices could help OpenAI attract more new users and potentially bring in subscription revenue. The value it generates is equal to or even greater than the benefits ChatGPT brings to Apple.
With ChatGPT, Apple can provide users with state-of-the-art chatbot services, which may attract users to spend more time on their devices and even upgrade.
Analysis suggests that under the current collaborative structure, OpenAI may need to pay a high price.
First, this collaboration may increase OpenAI's expenses, as ChatGPT is hosted on Microsoft's Azure cloud computing service, and the more it is used, the more OpenAI needs to pay Microsoft. After ChatGPT is integrated into Apple devices, its usage may increase significantly, thereby increasing OpenAI's costs.
In addition, although ChatGPT is currently provided for free on Apple devices, OpenAI and Apple can profit in the future by converting free users into paid ones.
OpenAI itself has a paid subscription plan that offers more advanced features. If users subscribe through the ChatGPT application on Apple devices, Apple, as the payment platform provider, is likely to take a cut.
It is worth noting that Apple's collaboration with OpenAI is not exclusive.
According to reports, Apple is also in talks with other AI companies such as Google and Anthropic for similar collaborations. Apple's goal is to provide users with a variety of AI service options, just as its Safari browser offers multiple search engine options.
All signs indicate that in the long run, Apple hopes to profit from AI technology through revenue sharing with its partners. Apple anticipates that chatbots and other AI tools may gradually erode the huge revenue it generates from Google search agreements, thus requiring new profit models.
In addition to external collaborations, Apple is also vigorously developing its own AI technology, unveiling an internal development feature called "Apple Intelligence" at this week's WWDC.
Unlike ChatGPT, which requires cloud computing support, Apple Intelligence primarily runs locally on devices, making it more cost-effective to operate. However, supporting more languages and regions remains a major challenge for Apple Intelligence to succeed globally.
Editor / jayden