Apple, known for its stringent secrecy measures, has prohibited its employees from using, instead of humans, newly popular programs for automatically writing emails and software code such as ChatGPT and Microsoft-owned GitHub's Copilot, which can result in the inadvertent sharing of company information with the bots' developers, the report said.

Apple has been wary of AI-powered software entering its App Store lately. In early March, the company blocked the BlueMail email app after it was updated with ChatGPT, citing concerns that it could display inappropriate content to underage users.

Apple is not the only company concerned about the chatbot's privacy. In April, South Korea's Samsung banned its employees from using ChatGPT after discovering a source code leak caused by its workers' use of the tool.

OpenAI's ChatGPT language model, launched in late November, has received mixed reviews for its ability to mimic human conversation and generate unique text based on user input. Some have praised the model for its professional applications, such as code development, while others have criticized its potential for abuse, such as students using the model to write essays.

(With UNI inputs)