While Microsoft was worrying about Google’s AI dominance, it should have been worried about Apple. Apple may have been quiet on AI while its rivals brought innovation after innovation to the budding market for generative artificial intelligence, but in typical Apple fashion, its lateness is no sign of weakness.
Apple just snagged an “observer” seat on OpenAI’s board of directors, according to Bloomberg, which cited unnamed sources. The position — which will be filled by Apple’s App store head Phil Schiller later this year — is part of Apple’s deal with OpenAI to put ChatGPT on its devices.
Microsoft got its non-voting OpenAI board seat in November of 2023. The company has a multi-year, multi-billion dollar partnership with the powerful AI startup behind the world’s best-known chatbot (ChatGPT). Such board positions allow the tech giants to glean insights from OpenAI decision-making processes, though Microsoft and Apple have no control over those decisions.
Historic rivals Apple and Microsoft have been neck-and-neck in the race to a seat as the world’s most valuable company over the last month. Microsoft’s major push into AI over the past year helped it surpass Apple’s market capitalization for the first time since 2021 in January. Apple finally caught up in June, and now Microsoft’s market cap is just nose hairs (in Big Tech terms) ahead.
Apple’s ChatGPT deal and OpenAI board seat isn’t the only case for its potential AI dominance. The company is expected to announce future partnerships with Google and other AI chatbot-makers in the future, and it’s working on its own AI tools (dubbed “Apple Intelligence”) such as AI enhancements to its voice assistant, Siri, among other features.
But while Apple’s OpenAI board seat is good for its financials, it’s another sign of the growing entanglement between AI startups and Big Tech, which has sparked antitrust concerns. And as powerful firms take meetings behind closed doors, experts and former employees have said their lack of oversight and transparency pose serious risks to society — since no substantive AI regulation exists yet — such as proliferating misinformation and exacerbating inequalities.
By the numbers
$10 billion: Amount of Microsoft’s investment in OpenAI last year
$3.41 trillion: Microsoft’s market capitalization on July 3
$3.38 trillion: Apple’s market cap on July 3
$0: How much Apple is paying OpenAI to put ChatGPT on its devices