Apple plans to become an observer on the board of OpenAI, writes the Financial Times.
The board role was agreed upon as part of an agreement between Apple and OpenAI announced last month to integrate ChatGPT with Apple devices.
The CEO of Apple, Tim Cook, said that the company was taking the “next big step” to integrate AI into its products and that the partnership would be a part of a suite of features for users, like the improved Siri voice assistant.
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According to the publication’s sources, Phil Schiller, the head of the Apple App Store and a member of its executive team since 1997, will take the position of board observer.
The observer position means that Schiller will be able to attend OpenAI board meetings but will not be able to vote on any of its decisions. This puts Apple on par with Microsoft, which was also granted a non-voting observer role last year. Microsoft has invested about $13 billion in OpenAI as part of a strategic partnership that allows the ChatGPT maker to leverage Microsoft’s vast computing and cloud resources while remaining an independent business.
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Under the terms of the deal, Microsoft is entitled to roughly half of OpenAI’s profits until the investment is repaid.
OpenAI renewed its board of directors in March, and Sam Altman, the startup’s founder and chief executive, returned after an unexpected ouster last November.
He added three new board members, including Instacart CEO Fiji Simo, former Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation chair Sue Desmond-Hellman, and Nicole Seligman, former president of Sony Entertainment.
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Larry Summers, the former US Treasury Secretary, joined the board towards the end of the previous year. Quora CEO Adam D’Angelo also serves on the board.
The Apple deal comes at a time when tech giants including Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon, and Meta are racing to develop new products using artificial intelligence while competing with, or in some cases, partnering with, startups focused on the technology.
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Apple will not pay for OpenAI’s use of ChatGPT, but the deal will give the startup access to hundreds of millions of users.
Dubbed “Apple Intelligence,” Apple’s suite of generative AI features is expected to launch later this year.
Also Read: The Microsoft surface event was dominated by new artificial intelligence technology
As reported, a chatbot under the control of artificial intelligence, Copilot, was developed by Microsoft. The company announced the launch of the bot, calling it a “second pilot” for Telegram.
In addition, Microsoft announced the release of the Copilot Plus PC line. The devices will be powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite and Plus processors based on ARM architecture, optimized for artificial intelligence. In the future, the release of computers that will work under the control of Intel and AMD processors is expected.
