Former Siri head John Giannandrea pushed Apple to choose Google’s Gemini chatbot over ChatGPT for the first chatbot integration with Siri last year, according to a Bloomberg report looking at Apple’s uneven AI efforts.
Giannandrea, an ex-Google executive who was demoted in a leadership reshuffle in March, thought that OpenAI’s bot wouldn’t have staying power and wasn’t protective of sensitive personal data. Despite these concerns, Apple announced ChatGPT’s integration at WWDC in 2024 and made the feature available to users in December.
Apple’s integration lets users tap ChatGPT in instances where Siri isn’t able to answer a question. Last year, Apple announced that it would connect additional chatbots, including Google’s Gemini, to Siri.
Apple is also in preliminary talks with AI-powered search engine Perplexity to offer Perplexity as a ChatGPT alternative in Siri and a search provider in the company’s Safari browser, according to Bloomberg.
