Apple raked in $900M from generative AI apps in 2025 despite lagging behind in the AI race

Apple made roughly $900M from generative AI apps in 2025 - 9to5Mac

Between January and August 2025, App Store revenue from generative AI apps nearly tripled, largely driven by ChatGPT subscriptions. Here are the details. According to a new report by AppMagic (via WSJ), "Apple's revenue from GenAI apps rose from about $35 million in January 2025 to a high of $101 million in August," before trending back down due to a decline in downloads of ChatGPT. And speaking of ChatGPT, AppMagic says that OpenAI's chatbot accounted for nearly 75% of the total commission gains from generative apps on the App Store, followed by Grok, at 5%. As the WSJ notes, that's a notable sum for a company that still lacks a true rival to ChatGPT and similar products, and a welcome buffer as Apple works out its partnership with Google to have Gemini work as the underlying technology of the revamped Siri: Its Siri chatbot is still weak by modern AI standards. What Apple does have that the other AI players don't is a dominant position making devices. However fancy OpenAI, Google, Anthropic and xAI make their chatbots, iPhones are still a primary way to deliver them to consumers. And Apple's AI plan runs counter to strategies of competitors that are spending hundreds of billions of dollars on chips and data centers to build frontier large language models. Apple is spending a fraction of that, aiming instead to use all the personal information people store on their iPhones together with chips it designs itself to power an on-device AI strategy. Neither Apple nor Google has discussed the financial terms of their partnership, but Bloomberg reported last year that it would be a "about $1 billion a year" deal. Ironically, it looks like this price tag may effectively be funded by Google's own competition on the App Store.

Apple Made Nearly $900 Million From Generative AI Apps Last Year

Apple collected nearly $900 million in App Store fees from generative AI apps in 2025, according to data from analysis firm AppMagic, covered by The Wall Street Journal ($). The overwhelming majority of Apple's AI app commission revenue came courtesy of ChatGPT downloads leading to subsequent subscriptions, which alone accounted for around 75 percent of the above total. Elon Musk's Grok app came a distant second, making up just 5 percent of the revenue. Apple is now said to be on course to earn $1 billion in generative app revenue this year. Given how behind the company is in the AI race, highlighted by the sluggish progress of its enhanced Siri rollout, it's a tidy sum indeed. Of course, the reason Apple benefits from the popularity of AI apps built by other companies is that the iPhone remains the smartphone market leader. Most AI apps still have to go through its App Store, where Apple takes a commission of up to 30 percent on subscriptions. As the report notes: "Its Siri chatbot is still weak by modern AI standards. What Apple does have that the other AI players don't is a dominant position making devices. However fancy OpenAI, Google, Anthropic and xAI make their chatbots, iPhones are still a primary way to deliver them to consumers." The revenue stands in contrast to Apple's relatively modest AI spending compared to rivals like Microsoft, Amazon, and Meta, all of whom have poured tens of billions into AI infrastructure, with little to no profit yet to show for it. Meanwhile, Apple's capital expenditures have remained comparatively flat, thanks to its prioritization of investment in on-device AI over large data centers filled with GPU processors. The strategy won't enable a more capable Siri, but Apple appears to be happy to lean on Google to provide the necessary AI infrastructure for that. The two companies announced in January that Gemini will power a revamped version of Apple's virtual assistant, coming later this year. The financial terms of the partnership haven't been disclosed, but Bloomberg reported last year that the deal would be around $1 billion annually. That will give Apple access to a 1.2 trillion parameter model that dwarfs its in-house capabilities. Perhaps the deeper irony is that Google already pays Apple around $20 billion per year to remain the default search engine on iPhones, so now money is flowing in the other direction too, albeit at a drastically lower rate. Still, some investors see the App Store approach as a more viable long-term strategy. Charles Rinehart, chief investment officer of Johnson Asset Management, told WSJ that if Apple "can act as a toll road for providers of AI, then they'll probably end up looking good long-term."

Apple Made Nearly $1 Billion Last Year From a Technology It Doesn't Even Lead -- Here's Why

Apple is on track to cross $1 billion in AI revenue this year from App Store fees alone. Apple sat back and let everyone else fight over who could build the best AI chatbot. Then, when the dust settled, it charged those same companies fees to reach users through the App Store -- pulling in nearly $1 billion last year alone just from AI apps like ChatGPT and Claude. Mobile market intelligence firm AppMagic told The Wall Street Journal earlier this week that Apple forced big AI companies like OpenAI, Google, Anthropic and xAI to pay the Apple App Store tax, or a 30% cut of subscription fees in the first year and 15% every year after. AppMagic estimated that generative AI apps paid Apple $900 million in fees in 2025. About 75% of that revenue came from ChatGPT, per the firm's analysis. Apple's revenue from AI apps jumped from about $35 million in January 2025 to a peak of $101 million in August. Since then, sales have slipped, in part because ChatGPT downloads have tapered off, the data shows. The Journal reported that Apple is on track to cross $1 billion in AI revenue this year from App Store fees alone. Apple's lucrative position as the gatekeeper of more than 2.5 billion active devices allows it to profit without making AI advances of its own. Apple's quest to upgrade Siri with AI has encountered some roadblocks. Due to development challenges and testing issues, Apple delayed Siri's AI overhaul to later this year, Bloomberg reported last month. Tests uncovered that Siri can take too long to handle requests and sometimes fails to process queries. The AI-powered Siri to come will have better contextual awareness, understand follow-up questions, have an enhanced ability to answer questions and act on content within apps. It will also allow users to control apps with their voice alone, per Bloomberg. Apple and Google revealed in January that Google's Gemini AI will back the updated version of Siri. Gemini "will help power future Apple Intelligence features, including a more personalized Siri coming this year," Apple and Google wrote in a joint statement. OpenAI is poised to develop new devices to compete with Apple, according to Business Insider. In May 2025, OpenAI acquired AI device startup io for $6.5 billion. Former Apple designer Jony Ive, who designed the iPhone and iPad, is the founder of io. He and his team of about 55 designers, engineers and researchers joined OpenAI as part of the acquisition. Ive and OpenAI are collaborating on a secretive new AI-powered device that could replace phones, putting their venture in direct competition with Apple. OpenAI reported last month that ChatGPT had hit 900 million weekly active users.

Apple Continues To Tax AI, All Set To Collect Over $1 Billion From Generative AI Apps In 2026

Apple may not be leading on AI at the moment but that has not stopped the tech giant from profiting off the mania around generative artificial intelligence apps. What's more, Apple's haul from AI apps is only expected to grow in 2026, as per a new analysis. As per the data from AppMagic, Apple collected $900 million in fees from generative AI apps in 2025, with 75 percent of this haul coming from OpenAI's ChatGPT. Interestingly, xAI's Grok AI app only contributed around 5 percent to Apple's cumulative revenue haul from such apps. What's more, as per the current trajectory, Apple is well on its way to earn over $1 billion in fees from generative AI apps in 2026, which speaks volumes as to its apex position as a gatekeeper of sorts for the broader app-based ecosystem. Do note that Apple typically collects as much as 30 percent of a given app's subscription-based revenue. As a refresher, Apple intends to launch a revamped version of Siri this year, bringing the much-delayed in-app actions, personal context awareness, and on-screen awareness to its bespoke voice assistant, thereby, enabling a wide variety of agentic actions across apps, based on personal data and on-screen content. This revamped Siri would be powered by a 1.2-trillion-parameter custom Gemini AI model, dubbed the Foundation Models version 10. Even so, with next year's iOS 27 update, Apple is planning to launch a dedicated Siri chatbot that will run on Google's own TPUs and cloud infrastructure, but owned by Apple. The iPhone manufacturer insists that the arrangement would not result in a change in Apple's stringent privacy-related safeguards. According to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, the Siri chatbot will be baked into Apple's software rather than debuting as a standalone app, allowing it to search the web, generate content, including images, provide coding assistance, summarize and analyze information, as well as upload files. It will be able to use personal data to complete tasks and sport a substantially improved search feature. Apple is also designing a feature that will let the Siri chatbot view open windows and on-screen content, as well as adjust device features and settings. The chatbot Siri will reportedly leverage a much more advanced version of Google's Gemini model, known internally as Apple Foundation Models version 11. According to Gurman, "the model is expected to be competitive with Gemini 3 and significantly more capable" than the one supporting the revamped Siri.