OpenAI has admitted in court that putting ChatGPT inside Siri did very little for it. In a filing in its legal fight with Elon Musk’s AI company, OpenAI describes the Apple integration as “dramatically underperforming” and, later in the same document, “persistently underperforming.”
The same filing shows OpenAI asked Apple for two years of exclusivity. Apple said no.
What the Filing Says
Apple added ChatGPT to Siri in December 2024, as part of the iOS 18.2 update. According to OpenAI’s filing, the integration was “off to a slow start” by January 2025, and OpenAI cut its forecast for how many extra logged-in weekly users the partnership would bring.
By the time Musk’s companies sued Apple and OpenAI, OpenAI says, “it was clear that Apple’s integration of ChatGPT was dramatically underperforming.” The filing also mentions a conversation between Apple and OpenAI in March 2026 about the partnership. What was said is redacted, along with much of the rest of the document.
OpenAI’s expert witness, Dr. Catherine Tucker, measured the share of generative AI users who reached ChatGPT through Apple Intelligence. The figures are redacted too, but OpenAI calls the effect “indisputably de minimis”, which is legal language for too small to count, and says that matches its “internal view that Apple Intelligence saw minimal usage.”
Why OpenAI Is Saying This Out Loud
OpenAI puts these numbers on the record because they help its case. Musk’s lawsuit claims Apple and OpenAI struck an exclusive deal that locked rival chatbots out of the iPhone and hurt the growth of his own company, then called xAI and now SpaceXAI. OpenAI’s answer has two parts. First, the contract was non-exclusive, and it says so in writing: Apple kept the right to “integrate products or services that provide the same or similar functionality” as ChatGPT. Second, even if the deal had been exclusive, it could not have harmed anyone, because hardly anybody used it.
Musk’s companies dropped their claims against Apple earlier this month, leaving OpenAI as the only defendant. OpenAI wants the case thrown out before the trial, which is scheduled for January 2027.
The Exclusivity Apple Refused
The detail Apple fans will enjoy is the one OpenAI did not win. It asked for a two-year exclusivity period, and Apple turned it down. Apple told OpenAI it planned to launch with one provider and add others later, which is what it said in public at the time.
It then did exactly that. Apple signed a deal with Google, and its newest models are based on Gemini, which we covered when Apple first bet on Gemini for the next Siri. A two-year exclusive running from December 2024 would have kept Google out until the end of 2026.
Relations between the two companies have gone downhill since. Apple is now suing OpenAI over alleged trade secret theft, and OpenAI is building its own phone, speaker and glasses.
Why Nobody Used It
The filing blames the setup. Getting ChatGPT working in Siri meant going through a multistep opt-in, and every step lost people.
Anyone who tried it will remember the rest. Siri only passed a question to ChatGPT when it decided it could not answer it itself, and by default it asked your permission each time before sending anything across. You were having a conversation with one assistant that kept stopping to ask whether it could phone a friend. People who wanted ChatGPT opened the ChatGPT app, which was faster and did not need a middleman.
That matters for what Apple does next. The new Siri in iOS 27 runs on Apple’s own Gemini-based models and answers the question itself, and OpenAI’s own numbers suggest Apple was right to stop relying on a partner for it. Whether the rebuilt Siri draws people in is a separate question. So far you still have to join a waitlist to try it, which is its own kind of opt-in.
Did You Ever Use It?
Did you turn on ChatGPT in Siri, and did you keep using it once the novelty wore off? Or did you go straight to the ChatGPT app like most people seem to have done? Let us know in the comments.
- Best VPS Hosting for Developers in the UK 2026: A Real Comparison - September 29, 2026
- iPhone Handoff Costs $5 a Month on T-Mobile, and AT&T Isn’t Offering It at All - September 25, 2026
- Do Not Swap Your iPhone 18 Pro: The Face ID Crash Is Software, And The Fix Is Days Away - September 25, 2026