• Tim Cook didn’t blink when the CEO was asked whether he uses ChatGPT.
• Apple has restricted employees’ use of ChatGPT, The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this year.
• Cook has been cautious about generative AI, while other CEOs have been saying ‘AI’ over and over.

Apple CEO Tim Cook said he uses ChatGPT and is excited about the chatbot, during an interview on Good Morning America. 

Cook has been cautious in his comments about artificial intelligence and generative AI this year, while most tech CEOs have been falling over themselves to say “AI” on earnings conference calls. Apple has even restricted its employees’ ChatGPT use over privacy concerns, The Wall Street Journal reported. 

But when asked whether he uses the chatbot from OpenAI, Cook didn’t blink. 

“Oh of course I use it,” he said. “Yeah, I’m excited about it. I think there’s some unique applications for it and you can bet that it’s something that we’re looking at closely.”

That last bit is Tim Cook code. He’s giving everyone a heads-up that Apple is applying the might of its technological and financial power to the emerging field of AI. Still, he reiterated previous comments on the need to proceed carefully. 

“You worry about things like bias, things like misinformation, maybe worse in some cases,” Cook said. “Regulation is something that’s needed in this space. I think guardrails are needed. And if you look down the road, that it’s so powerful that companies have to employ their own ethical decisions. Regulation will have a difficult time staying even with the progress on this because it’s moving so quickly. And so it’s incumbent on companies as well to regulate themselves.”

Check out the full interview clip here. 

In the recent past, Cook has said that the AI wave that is sweeping tech is “huge,” though he sounded a note of caution about how the technology would be deployed at his company.

“It’s very important to be deliberate and thoughtful on how you approach these things,” Cook said during an Apple earnings call earlier this year.

Cook’s relatively restrained take on the technology comes as competitors Microsoft and Google have leaned into generative AI in a big, buzzy way — with chatbots like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Microsoft’s Bing (which uses OpenAI’s technology under their partnership), and Google’s Bard storming onto the scene.