Apple Abandoned Plans to Open Source its AI Models

According to a new report from The Information, Apple dropped plans to open source its AI models after internal concerns over performance and impact on the company’s reputation (via 9to5Mac).

The idea gained traction inside Apple’s foundation model division earlier this year. Engineers believed releasing the models publicly would both showcase their work and allow the wider research community to build upon it.

With competitors like Meta releasing models such as Llama under open licenses, Apple’s AI team hoped to increase engagement and credibility by doing the same. However, those ambitions didn’t survive scrutiny from the company’s top executives. The final decision not to proceed reportedly came from Craig Federighi, Apple’s Senior Vice President of Software Engineering.

nternally, there were concerns that these models wouldn’t measure up to more powerful AI systems running on cloud infrastructure, like those from OpenAI, Google, or Anthropic. Publishing models that may appear underwhelming by comparison could weaken Apple’s reputation in AI and open it to criticism.

Executives were also concerned that open-sourcing the models wouldn’t meaningfully move the needle, given the abundance of similar or even more advanced models already available from other companies. For Apple, which has emphasized privacy and on-device processing in its AI strategy, releasing scaled-down models might have raised more questions than it answered about its long-term ambitions in the space.

The internal disagreement over this strategy reflects broader tensions within Apple’s AI division. While the company recently introduced “Apple Intelligence” with a focus on tight integration with iOS and macOS devices, not all researchers are happy with its device-first approach.

In response, Apple is said to be reworking compensation and exploring deeper partnerships with leading AI providers. The company has already announced collaborations with OpenAI and is rumored to be considering Anthropic or Google’s Gemini for future integrations, especially to power features like the revamped Siri.