After last year’s brief, chaotic ouster of CEO Sam Altman, OpenAI reformed its board and key partner Microsoft got a seat as a non-voting observer. Microsoft had been blindsided by the Altman episode, which had been set in motion by the old board, and this was a way of ensuring it wouldn’t get any further nasty surprises from the company into which it had invested $13 billion. But now, according to Bloomberg, another non-voting observer is coming: Apple, as represented by App Store chief Phil Schiller. Apple hasn’t invested anything into OpenAI, but it is integrating OpenAI’s models into its devices (for free) and Schiller’s role is reportedly part of that agreement. It’s not hard to see how the situation may become awkward, as Microsoft and Apple are longstanding rivals that will soon both be using OpenAI’s models to power AI assistants on their competing products. Even by the excessively cozy standards of the U.S. AI sector, this may be too close for comfort. There will have to be a lot of recusing going on during certain board discussions, and that might not be enough to make this work. But even without considering the potential for future disputes too deeply, there’s quite a lot to digest about the immediate implications of letting Apple observe OpenAI’s board meetings. The first and most obvious point is that both parties in the Microsoft-OpenAI love-in are increasingly hedging their bets. It’s been clear for a while that Microsoft is doing this—unsurprisingly, given last year’s turmoil. It absorbed key staff from the AI startup Inflection in March and is now reportedly developing a GPT-rivaling AI model of its own, with Inflection cofounder Mustafa Suleyman leading the effort.

Full story : Apple Gets OpenAI Board Observer Role as Part of AI Pact Which Reveals Awkward Internal Machinations at OpenAI.