Is Apple Ghosting OpenAI’s Massive Cyber Defense Pact?
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OpenAI recently issued a warning that AI-powered cyber attacks are about to become more common and dangerous, and more than 150 companies across tech, finance, and security have now joined the call to action.
You’ll recognize many names on the list backing “A Call for Collective Action on Cyber Defense,” including Google, PayPal, Shopify, Adobe, T-Mobile, Oracle, IBM, Microsoft, Anthropic, Amazon Web Services, Citi, and US Bank. It keeps growing. However, one company’s absence from the list is particularly conspicuous: Apple is nowhere to be found here.
The letter argues that AI is quickly reaching a tipping point where it’s going to be more powerful in waging cyber attacks than defending against them. Everything “from hospitals, to water treatment plants to the infrastructure that powers the internet — are all at risk.”
The letter maintains that a well-organized counteroffensive is needed, proposing increased cooperation between all organizations, particularly technology companies, governments, and the leaders in AI to prioritize new tools, funding, and support. One recurring theme in the letter is the need to focus on critical infrastructure, like water treatment plants, which have been “historically under-resourced” and have “limited budgets.” That’s scary.
The letter carves out the roles and priorities for major players such as cybersecurity companies to lead the response, governments to fund it and share threat intelligence, and frontier AI companies to provide responsible access to models and hands-on support for “under-resourced critical-infrastructure defenders.”
Recently, researchers at Calif, a network security company that’s on the new list, demonstrated how sophisticated and harmful readily available AI tools can be by using an Anthropic model to penetrate macOS.
The letter also urges all companies to make cyber defense an immediate priority at the highest levels and to “Raise your security standards and meet them with the urgency and coordination of an incident that takes precedence over everything except critical business operations.”
Time will tell if this is a symbolic show of unity and more diplomatic way of saying “don’t say we didn’t warn you,” or if actionable steps follow.
OpenAI rallied this coalition, even getting its top rival, Anthropic, to sign on. Apple, along with others like Meta and Nvidia, have not. Apple hasn’t commented publicly as to its decision. We don’t know if Apple was even asked, but it’s hard to imagine it not being invited to the table — even if the two companies are currently embroiled in a trade secrets lawsuit.
Apple is known for going its own way. It shouldn’t be a huge surprise they didn’t co-sign something from another company. Apple’s security messaging largely emphasizes on-device and hardware-level security.
There’s also the optics of signing an initiative led by OpenAI. While OpenAI’s ChatGPT is still officially the only third-party AI extension for Apple Intelligence, Apple chose to build Siri AI in iOS 27 on the foundation of Google’s Gemini models, rather than partnering with OpenAI. While Google reportedly won out in an internal “bake-off,” against OpenAI and Anthropic, it likely didn’t help that OpenAI has plans to enter the hardware business, and may even be planning a competitor to the iPhone.
None of this is confirmed, of course — just speculation. Apple’s decision may have simply come down to timing. In addition to having just gotten a new CEO, the September “Surprise and Shine” event is being held next week, on Wednesday, September 9. We’re expecting Apple to unveil quite a few things next week, from the iPhone 18 and iPhone 18 Pro to the long-awaited foldable iPhone along with a new Apple Watch Series 12 and Apple Watch Ultra 4. It makes sense Apple wouldn’t make any other public moves that would distract from this highly anticipated event.
