OpenAI has an early lead in the AI battle, and their ChatGPT brand is already a household name synonymous with LLMs for most people. This is the first time there’s been a real threat to Google’s monopoly in a decade.

Never mind they don’t have a profitable business model yet. OpenAI will pay a premium to Apple to keep their lead and remain the dominant brand in this new space in hopes they can someday supplant internet search. OpenAI seems to be at the point where they’ll burn billions in cash trying to join the ranks of the big tech monopolies. If they can reach Google’s status, they’ll be able to change ChatGPT from its “ten blue links” stage into something worse (but monetizable), but only if they can achieve dominant and defensive market share. Nobody seems to know how to pull off this last trick yet.

But in the meantime, a little competition in search (Google) is hugely beneficial to the largest gatekeeper of mobile users (Apple).