If Apple (AAPL.US) were to participate in OpenAI, the cost might be to earn $20 billion less from Google

The Zhitong Finance App learned that a recent research report released by Bank of America shows that market news about Apple (AAPL.US) may participate in the latest round of financing for ChatGPT developer OpenAI may trigger strong concerns among investors about the search engine agreement between the tech giant and Google (GOOGL.US).

According to information, people familiar with the matter broke the news that the world's highest market capitalization chip giant Nvidia (NVDA.US) has discussed joining OpenAI's latest round of financing. This round of financing may result in OpenAI's valuation exceeding 100 billion US dollars. People familiar with the matter also said that Apple and Microsoft, one of OpenAI's shareholders, have also been discussing this round of financing with OpenAI. People familiar with the matter said that this round of financing will be led by Thrive Capital, and Nvidia has already discussed investing about $100 million.

If negotiations achieve substantial positive progress, this will mean that the world's top three most valuable tech giants will support the developers of ChatGPT, a groundbreaking AI chatbot. Currently, Microsoft is the largest sponsor of OpenAI. As of the latest round of financing, it had invested about 13 billion US dollars in OpenAI.

Bank of America analysts wrote in the research report: “Apple's major direct investment in OpenAI may cause investors to worry because potential AI partners are long-term alternatives to Google's search engine, and ChatGPT embedded in iPhone may cause a sharp decline in the scale of search engine usage.” “At the very least, Apple's capital injection should help the competitive landscape between OpenAI and Google and Amazon.”

Both Google and Amazon are major shareholders of Anthropic, an AI startup known as “OpenAI's strongest competitor.” OpenAI's ChatGPT and Anthropic's Claude are currently the AI applications with the largest number of users in the AI chatbot field in the world.

According to an agreement between Apple and Google, the latter paid to make the former the default search engine on iOS devices. According to testimony provided by the US Department of Justice in its antitrust lawsuit against Google, Google paid Apple approximately $20 billion under the agreement in 2022.

If Apple successfully invests in OpenAI, the end-side version of ChatGPT may reach more users on iPhones with a huge user base. At that time, the preferred search method for iPhone users may no longer be Google, and this may also hinder the renewal of the agreement between Apple and Google, and Google may no longer pay 20 billion US dollars to Apple.

Apple has previously established a partnership with OpenAI and announced the news at the June developer conference. ChatGPT driven by GPT-4O, OpenAI's most advanced model, will later be integrated into Apple's voice assistant Siri. Apple demonstrated at the press conference that if Siri users need to call the AI chatbot ChatGPT, it will pop up a window asking the user if they want to share all of this with ChatGPT.

On June 10, Apple unveiled a series of artificial intelligence features at its Global Developers Conference. This new artificial intelligence technology, called “Apple Intelligence” (Apple Intelligence), includes AI one-click summary notifications, automatic transcription of voice memos, and Apple's autonomous tool for generating custom emojis.

Under the framework of Apple Intelligence technology, AI chatbots such as ChatGPT embedded in end-side devices can be fully integrated with Apple's Siri voice assistants. This move will enable Apple iOS users to control all the functions of a single application (App) using only voice, and to a certain extent, achieve full application linkage and interaction. Siri's positioning may no longer be a clumsy formal voice assistant, but a character similar to an “omnipotent AI companion.”

Compared to general-purpose AI models that use cloud-based computing power, AI chatbots based on the large local model on the end side can enable smartphone users to use similar products such as ChatGPT more efficiently, conveniently, and safely, and with end-side AI, it is expected that “personal AI assistants” that meet the individual needs of users can be realized.