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OpenAI has launched a new ChatGPT feature that could set off privacy alarms for Apple users. The AI chatbot can now scan through your iMessages if you allow it to. It can also read, write and send texts on your behalf, OpenAI announced in a post on X.
Apple’s iMessage is the native messaging service for iPhones and other Apple devices. The new feature, called Apple Messages Plugin, is currently available only to users of ChatGPT Work and Codex on Mac desktops, not on mobile devices. You can choose whether to add the plugin, but you’ll have to go through several permission procedures before it’s active.
OpenAI said ChatGPT won’t store your messages and that the plugin will run only on your local Mac computer, not on OpenAI’s cloud servers, as reported by Bloomberg. But despite such assertions, the new feature could be troubling for Apple, which for decades has marketed itself as protective of customer privacy.
OpenAI and Apple originally launched a partnership in June 2024 to integrate ChatGPT into iOS, iPadOS and MacOS systems. But the relationship became strained in July this year, when Apple sued OpenAI in federal court, alleging Sam Altman’s company stole trade secrets and misappropriated intellectual property.
OpenAI can already access some Apple customer apps, though they all require permissions. ChatGPT Health can analyze information in the iPhone and iPad Health apps. The chatbot can also work with Mac apps such as Xcode, Notes and Terminal.
Representatives for OpenAI and Apple did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Big mistrust in Big Tech
The question is: Do Apple users really want OpenAI’s ChatGPT — the world’s most widely used chatbot — to have access to its messaging app?
OpenAI has faced a litany of lawsuits over the past few years, accused of misusing customer data to train its AI models and also of giving it to other companies. (Disclosure: Ziff Davis, CNET’s parent company, in 2025 filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.)
According to a class-action lawsuit filed earlier this year, OpenAI allegedly shared private ChatGPT customer data with Meta and Google. In 2023, OpenAI was accused of stealing huge amounts of data, including medical records and information about children, to train ChatGPT. The New York Times, Encyclopedia Britannica and Merriam-Webster have also sued OpenAI, claiming it used copyrighted material to train its AI models.
Several enterprise AI firms are getting hit with litigation. According to the AI Lawsuit Tracker, well over 100 lawsuits have been filed for “training-data ingestion” against the biggest names in tech: Google, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia, Anthropic, Amazon, Adobe, Apple and ByteDance.
Even cases that would have seemed bizarre a few years ago are becoming standard. In Illinois, nine major companies — including Apple, Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia and Samsung — are facing allegations of using thousands of hours of recorded human voices without permission for their AI systems.
The flood of malfeasance has contributed to growing disaffection toward the AI industry, especially among younger generations. In a recent survey by CNBC and Generation Labs, the majority of respondents, aged 18 to 34, said they distrust Big Tech founders and CEOs — including Palantir’s Alex Karp and Peter Thiel, Anthropic’s Dario Amodei, Alphabet’s Sundar Pichai, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, OpenAI’s Sam Altman, Nvidia’s Jensen Huang, SpaceX’s Elon Musk and Microsoft’s Satya Nadella.
More: 11 Ways ChatGPT Is Completely and Utterly Unreliable
How the new plugin works
If you want to add the new OpenAI feature, go to the ChatGPT Plugins menu, select Apple Messages and install it. You’ll then see a permissions screen in ChatGPT indicating that the message history on the Mac will be accessed by the Apple Messages app.
You’ll also have to change your privacy preferences in System Settings on your Mac, including enabling Full Disk Access. You’ll have to give ChatGPT permission to access contact names and automation tools.
After adding the Apple Messages plugin, you can activate it by typing @ followed by the plugin name or using the + menu in ChatGPT. That’s the same procedure you use to activate other plugins during a chat.
According to OpenAI’s post on X, you can “Search messages, catch up on conversations, draft and send replies.”
In that post, OpenAI showed a 32-second video demonstrating the feature: someone asking ChatGPT to review messages from the previous day to see if any follow-ups are needed. A book club friend had asked, “When is our next meeting?” ChatGPT then crafts a response and asks the person to review it before sending it.
Typically, a Mac user can access the same iMessages they have on their iPhone or iPad if they are using the same Apple account and if the devices are synced to both receive the same messages.
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