Apple integrates ChatGPT into Siri, iOS, and macOS

Reports of Apple signing a deal with OpenAI are true: ChatGPT is coming to your Apple gear.

First up is Siri, which can tap into ChatGPT to answer voice questions. If Siri thinks ChatGPT can help answer your question, you’ll get a pop-up permission box asking if you want to send your question to the chatbot. The response will come back in a window indicating that the information came from an outside source. This is the same way Siri treats a search engine (namely, Google), so how exactly Siri draws a line between ChatGPT and a search engine will be interesting. In Apple’s lone example, there was a “help” intent, with the input saying to “help me plan a 5-course meal” given certain ingredient limitations. That sort of ultra-specific input is something you can’t do with a traditional search engine.

Siri can also send photos to ChatGPT. In Apple’s example, the user snapped a picture of a wooden deck and asked Siri about decorating options. It sounds like the standard generative AI summary features will be here, too, with Apple SVP of Software Engineering Craig Federighi mentioning that “you can also ask questions about your documents, presentations, or PDFs.”

All of the system-wide writing tools are getting ChatGPT as an input option, too. Apple showed off a new context menu that seems to shoot out of the text input indicator. It has options for proofreading and what seems like a bunch of generative AI features. It can rewrite your text in “friendly,” “professional,” or “concise” styles, and it can make a summary, list, or table.

It’s not entirely clear which AI (Apple’s or OpenAI’s) is in charge of these options, but at the bottom, a “compose” button specifically launched a ChatGPT input box. In the demo, Apple gets started on a document with a text prompt, and generative text is filled into the open app—in this case, Pages. ChatGPT can also generate and insert pictures. ChatGPT access is free without needing to make an account, but if you’re already a paying customer, you can connect your account and get access to premium features.

ChatGPT features are launching on iOS 18, iPad OS 18, and macOS Sequoia “later this year,” which does not necessarily mean they will be ready for launch. Apple said it might add “support for other AI models in the future.” That Bloomberg article mentioned that Apple was also in negotiations with Google, so its chatbot is a good guess for the next one.

Listing image by Apple