Apple’s Phil Schiller gets an observer role on OpenAI’s board

Phil Schiller, Apples former marketing chief and current Apple Fellow, will get an observer role on OpenAI’s board as part of a landmark agreement between Apple and OpenAI, reports Bloomberg.

As a board observer, he won’t be serving as a full-fledged director, the article adds. A board observer is an informal board position where the participant is able to attend and contribute to board meetings, but isn’tt allowed to vote and has no control. OpenAI has also given a board observer role to Microsoft.

On May 30, it was reported that Apple had finalized a deal with OpenAI to integrate ChatGPT functionality into its various operating systems, via the upcoming Apple Intelligence.OpenAI is a U.S. based AI research organization founded in December 2015, researching artificial intelligence with the goal of developing “safe and beneficial” artificial general intelligence, which it defines as “highly autonomous systems that outperform humans at most economically valuable work.” 

The tech giant announced Apple Intelligence, a personal intelligence system for the Mac, iPhone, and iPad that “combines the power of generative models with personal context to deliver intelligence that’s incredibly useful and relevant” at last month’s Worldwide Developer Conference.

Apple Intelligence will be deeply integrated into macOS Sequoia, iOS 18, and iPadOS 18. It harnesses the power of Apple silicon to understand and create language and images, take action across apps, and draw from personal context to simplify and accelerate everyday tasks. Here are all the features of Apple Intelligence as listed by Apple in a press release.

Schiller retired from his role as chief of marketing in 2020, but continues as an “Apple Fellow.” An Apple Fellow is a person who has been recognized by Apple for his/her extraordinary technical or leadership contributions to personal computing while at the company. Each Apple Fellow acts as a leader and a visionary, guiding the company in their particular area of expertise.

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