The news: Meta sent a letter to California’s attorney general last week asking that OpenAI’s transition to a for-profit company be stopped.
Meta is following in Elon Musk’s footsteps in taking legal action to stall OpenAI’s impending shift from an AI nonprofit to a Big Tech company. He claimed that the startup violated its founding principles by focusing on profits over safety.
Meta questions OpenAI’s motivations: Meta is saying that OpenAI raising billions of dollars in investments as a nonprofit and then switching to a for-profit business could lead to “a proliferation of similar startup ventures that are notionally charitable until they are potentially profitable,” per Engadget.
OpenAI on the defensive: The ChatGPT-maker fired back on Friday by releasing a blog post titled “Elon Musk wanted an OpenAI for-profit.”
Momentum is currently on OpenAI’s side: The company just released its latest models, including the Sora video generator and Advanced Voice mode with Vision updates.
ChatGPT-integration is also available on selected iPhones with Apple Intelligence, which could help accelerate mobile generative AI (genAI) use and adoption.
Our take: Legal pushback from AI rivals might raise anticompetitive scrutiny around OpenAI’s long-term plans and expansion, especially as it increases user-engagement and paid subscriptions.
This article is part of EMARKETER’s client-only subscription Briefings—daily newsletters authored by industry analysts who are experts in marketing, advertising, media, and tech trends. To help you finish 2024 strong, and start 2025 off on the right foot, articles like this one—delivering the latest news and insights—are completely free through January 31, 2025. If you want to learn how to get insights like these delivered to your inbox every day, and get access to our data-driven forecasts, reports, and industry benchmarks, schedule a demo with our sales team.