Apple’s partnership with ChatGPT to add AI features to iPhones “dramatically underperformed” after it launched in 2024, according to court documents that shed light on how their relationship unravelled. OpenAI, in legal filings, said it was disappointed by how little interest Apple generated from iPhone users after the two companies struck a deal in 2024 for ChatGPT to power ‘Apple Intelligence’. The relationship between two of Silicon Valley’s most prominent companies has since descended into an acrimonious trade secrets lawsuit brought by the smartphone maker.

When the 2024 deal was agreed, OpenAI expected a “halo effect” from promotion and brand association with Apple, as well as more subscriptions coming from Apple Intelligence users. But a month after the ChatGPT integration launched, it “appeared to be off to a slow start” and OpenAI was cutting its forecasts for how many weekly active users it expected to attract. By the summer of 2025, “it was clear that Apple’s integration of ChatGPT was dramatically underperforming”. The filing notes the default setting for the ChatGPT integration was ‘off’, requiring iPhone users to activate it through a multi-step process as one reason for the poor uptake.

The lack of commercial success contributed to a breakdown in their partnership. Apple partnered with Google in January to use its Gemini models for the completely rebuilt “Siri AI” after an embarrassing two-year delay. The smartphone maker filed a blockbuster lawsuit against OpenAI in July claiming large-scale trade secret theft. Wednesday’s filing is part of litigation brought by Elon Musk’s xAI, now part of SpaceX, in August 2025, challenging the Apple-OpenAI agreement on antitrust grounds. OpenAI claims that, rather than unfairly boosting its market position, the Apple integration coincided with a general decline in its market share as rivals such as Google, Anthropic, Meta and Grok gained traction with users.