Last month it was announced that the only AI model integrated with Apple devices at the launch of Apple Intelligence will be ChatGPT, but as reported by analyst Mark Gurman in his Bloomberg “Power On” newsletter, Apple will announce “at least ” another deal to also add Google Gemini by the fall. Gemini has been at the center of iOS 18 chatbot rumors as much as OpenAI: Apple’s head of software, Craig Federighi, even hinted at a deal with Google immediately after the keynote. Anthropic has also been implicated in these rumors, and Gurman suggests that Apple could announce a deal with this company in the future, if not as early as this fall. Meta, however, was quickly excluded because its Llama chatbot was not deemed good enough.
According to Gurman, Apple wants to make artificial intelligence a source of direct profits, not just a set of features to promote its hardware products. In this regard, the analyst suggests that the company could launch Apple Intelligence features accessible only via subscription. However, it seems that this will not happen anytime soon, and although Apple Intelligence will only be available for the iPhone 15 Pro, 16 and 16 Pro initially, it is unknown whether the first version will be enough to push users to buy a new one en masse device. Meanwhile, Apple will still get a portion of AI revenue through in-app purchase commission for its partners’ chatbot subscriptions. Third-party AI services could be an interesting temporary solution for the Cupertino company as it gradually rolls out its own generative AI system.