Apple Intelligence’s ChatGPT Integration Will Leverage GPT-5 on iOS 26

OpenAI released its new flagship GPT-5 model yesterday, and Microsoft immediately announced that it was incorporating it into its Copilot, GitHub Copilot, and Visual Studio Code products. 9to5Mac has since learned that Apple is also planning to upgrade Apple Intelligence’s ChatGPT integration with GPT-5 with the release of iOS 26, iPadOS 26, and macOS Tahoe 26 later this fall.

As of today, users of Apple devices that support Apple Intelligence can opt in to use ChatGPT within Siri, Writing Tools, and Visual Intelligence. ChatGPT features in Apple Intelligence currently use OpenAI’s GPT-4o model, but GPT-5 promises to deliver a “significant leap in intelligence” over the company’s previous LLMs. GPT-5 also works differently, as it’s a unified system that knows when to use an efficient model for quick responses and a deeper reasoning model for more complex problems.

OpenAI made GPT-5 available for all Free Plus, Pro, and Team users yesterday, with paid users also getting access to a “GPT‑5 Thinking” model for more complex queries. On Apple devices that support Apple Intelligence, it’s possible to use the ChatGPT extension without an account, but users who want to access their paid subscription or have their requests be saved to their ChatGPT history will need to sign in.

For now, Apple has no choice but to partner with companies like OpenAI to complement its lackluster Apple Intelligence features. However, according to a recent report from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, the company is working on a ChatGPT-like search product that can also search the web to respond to general-knowledge questions. This “answer engine” is being developed by a new Answers, Knowledge, and Information team within Apple, but it’s said to be still in its early stages of development.