Apple may charge subscription fees for advanced Siri AI features as costs mount

AppleInsider.com

It's obviously speculation, and repeated at that, but a new report argues that it's more likely that Apple will eventually charge a fee for Siri Ai now that Apple Intelligence has improved so much. Apple has long been predicted to introduce a subscription version of Apple Intelligence, and a new report chiefly repeats speculation from 2024. However, the new claim comes after the launch of Siri AI in beta, and Bloomberg's Power On newsletter argues that it has made subscriptions more likely. That's because even in beta form, the new Siri AI is described as adequate now, and will clearly improve in the future. The speculation is that over the next 12 months, the feature will improve enough, and become popular enough, that a subscription version could be a success. Then, too, Apple is shouldering the high costs of AI features such as Image Playground and Siri conversations. That must add to the pressure to get users to pay for their usage. As a consequence, the report predicts that conversations and image generation will move to a paid tier. There is already the fact that Apple has already said that iCloud+ subscribers can get a higher daily usage of both of these. Then World Knowledge might become a subscription feature, although at present this is the weakest part of the new Siri AI. Apple has the great benefit that Siri AI is part of its devices' operating systems, but it has the strong disadvantage that it let Siri get dramatically poorer while it worked on this new version. So Apple has to get back users who've given up on Siri before, plus it has to attract new users. If it cannot do that and also improve Siri AI, Apple would not be able to launch a separate Apple Intelligence subscription. That said, it could add Apple Intelligence features to its Apple One bundle. That has hardly changed its offering since it launched in 2020, so perhaps Apple Intelligence could be a way to boost sales of that bundle.

Apple Could Offer a Subscription for Advanced Siri AI Features

Apple unveiled new Siri and Visual Intelligence capabilities in WWDC 2026 Apple previewed an upgraded version of Siri alongside the launch of iOS 27, iPadOS 27, macOS 27, watchOS 27, tvOS 27, and visionOS 27 in the recently concluded WWDC 2026. The company showcased significant enhancements to Siri and released the Siri AI. This next-generation version of its virtual assistant, built on Apple Intelligence, is set to rival existing leading AI assistants like ChatGPT. Now, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman suggests that accessing full features of Siri may eventually require a paid subscription. Siri AI Could Become a Subscription Service In the Q&A session of his weekly newsletter, Power On, Mark Gurman hinted that adoption of Siri AI could lead Apple to introduce fees for advanced features. Gurman says that Apple is still in the early stages of convincing customers that its AI technology is worth using, let alone worth paying for. However, he believes that things will improve enough over the next 12 months and that the service could become worth a fee. He states that operating servers for AI-powered features such as Siri and Image Playground requires significant server resources and high costs. "I could see the following: the baseline features in Siri (things that existed prior to Siri AI, plus the on-device personal context features) will always be free with no rate limits", he said. "The more conversational, world knowledge and generative AI features will eventually get rate-limited and then require a fee, just like with ChatGPT", he added. Gurman added that Apple is currently allowing iCloud+ subscribers to raise the rate limit, but he thinks the company will bring a separate subscription at some point for these advanced AI features. Apple unveiled new Siri and Visual Intelligence capabilities with iOS 27, iPadOS 27, macOS 27, watchOS 27, tvOS 27, and visionOS 27. They will be available to the public later this fall. The Siri AI assistant can take data from Messages, Mail, Photos, and other apps and take actions across supported applications. It is also designed to combine details from multiple services to handle advanced requests. The dedicated Siri app lets users start a new conversation from a single interface or continue previous ones.