Apple rejected Meta partnership to bring AI to iOS: report

Apple turned down an AI partnership with Meta months ago, according to Bloomberg.

Mark Gurman, the publication’s ever-reliable Apple reporter, says the companies held “brief talks” in March to bring Meta’s Llama AI-powered chatbot to iPhone, but ultimately, nothing ever panned out. Citing multiple sources, Gurman says Apple decided not to move forward with the discussions in part because it viewed Meta’s privacy practices as too loose.

Meta has long been criticized for its handling of users’ privacy, with Apple, in particular, taking its fair share of shots at the company over the years. To that point, Gurman notes that a Meta partnership would have been viewed as an “about-face” by Apple. And besides AI, the companies have also become more direct competitors nowadays in areas like mixed-reality headsets (the Quest vs. the Vision Pro).

On top of privacy concerns, Gurman also says Apple was already in discussions to licence OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Alphabet’s Gemini in its products. He adds that Apple also views ChatGPT as superior to Llama, while the use of Gemini would just strengthen its existing partnership with Google on search in Apple’s Safari web browser.

Going forward, Apple will want to lean on these companies to bolster its AI offerings, especially in the chatbot space, as Gurman notes it’s not as advanced as others on the market. The iPhone maker made a big push into AI at its WWDC event earlier this month by announcing a new AI platform called Apple Intelligence, which can generate custom emoji, transcribe voice memos, summarize and prioritize notifications and more.

Distributed also on: Bloomberg