OpenAI publicly rebukes Apple over AI platform restrictions

OpenAI took the unusual step of publishing a direct, named critique of Apple, with a statement headlined 'Apple is getting this wrong' posted on OpenAI's own channels. The broadside targets Apple's platform restrictions around AI integration — the rules governing how third-party AI assistants and apps can operate on iOS and macOS — which OpenAI argues disadvantage competing AI providers.

Direct public conflict between two companies of this stature is rare; usually such disputes play out through regulators, lobbying or quiet negotiation rather than open letters. The timing is pointed: it lands the same week Apple is reported to be building its upgraded Siri AI on Google's Gemini models and courting publisher content deals, underscoring that Apple is choosing partners and setting platform terms in ways OpenAI sees as exclusionary.

The substance echoes long-running platform-power tensions — the same App Store and default-assistant control that drew antitrust scrutiny now extends to AI. For developers and rival AI labs, OpenAI's public stance is partly principle and partly positioning: forcing the platform-access debate into the open pressures Apple ahead of its fall Siri launch and aligns OpenAI with a broader 'open platforms' narrative. Whether it changes Apple's policies or merely escalates rhetoric is the open question, but it signals the AI competition is now spilling into control of the devices users actually hold.