Apple integrates OpenAI's GPT-5 into iOS & macOS 26
Apple is poised to integrate OpenAI’s latest large language model, GPT-5, into its upcoming operating systems – iOS 26, iPadOS 26, and macOS Tahoe 26. This significant development, reported by 9to5Mac, follows the recent wide availability of GPT-5 to ChatGPT users. While Apple has not yet officially announced the release dates for these major OS updates, they typically roll out to user devices in September. GPT-5 has already seen deployment on other platforms, including GitHub Copilot and Microsoft’s general-purpose Copilot.
GPT-5 represents a substantial advancement in AI capabilities, notably claiming an 80 percent reduction in “hallucinations”—the AI’s tendency to generate factually incorrect or nonsensical information. A key architectural innovation in GPT-5 is its revamped approach to model positioning: it automatically determines whether a user’s prompt requires a reasoning-optimized model. This intelligent selection aims to provide more accurate and contextually relevant responses. For standard ChatGPT users, this means free accounts will receive the model’s default choice, while paid subscribers retain the flexibility to manually select specific models for individual queries.
The precise implementation of these new features within Apple’s ecosystem, however, remains an open question. It is currently unclear whether iOS will consistently utilize GPT-5’s default mode or leverage its more advanced, “thinking” capabilities. Furthermore, the level of control afforded to paid ChatGPT subscribers on Apple devices—specifically, whether they will be able to manually select models as they can within the standalone ChatGPT application—is yet to be determined.
Currently, Apple’s integration of ChatGPT within iOS and macOS is relatively limited. Most of the AI-powered features built directly into Apple’s operating systems rely on the company’s own proprietary models, marketed under the “Apple Intelligence” brand. ChatGPT serves primarily as an alternative, allowing users to refer complex or out-of-scope prompts to OpenAI’s model on a case-by-case basis when Apple’s own AI is insufficient. This distinction highlights a significant power disparity. Many of Apple’s on-device models operate with a fraction of the computational power—around 3 billion parameters—compared to GPT-5’s staggering 500 billion-plus. This difference in scale means Apple’s local models are inherently more prone to errors and possess more constrained capabilities than the much larger, cloud-based GPT-5.
While a complete overhaul of ChatGPT’s integration with GPT-5 seems unlikely in the immediate future, Apple has signaled broader ambitions for AI in upcoming releases. The 2026 OS updates could potentially lay the groundwork for a more deeply integrated and sophisticated AI experience across its platforms.