Did Apple just declare war on OpenAI?

Does the Internet Accounts prefpane predict ChatGPT’s fate?

Apple’s history shows a pattern of integrating key rivals into its ecosystem, only to eventually overshadow or eliminate them.

Consider the interface for adding “Internet Accounts” to “use with Mail, Contacts, Calendar, Messages, and other apps” from Mac OS High Sierra (circa 2017):

The Internet Accounts preference pane from Mac OS High Sierra

Seven years later, you can imagine replacing this pane with third-party “Siri Sources” to drive the personalized utility of Apple Intelligence.

Indeed, Siri has already been able to “learn from” the applications you use:

Siri & Spotlight preferences for controlling which apps Siri can “learn from”

Once macOS Sequoia and iOS 18 launch, you’ll be able to let Siri pass off questions to ChatGPT, Gemini, or other models — likely integrated similar to how Apple did with those “Internet Accounts” providers years ago.