Siri AI could come with a paywall for power users

In his final earnings call as CEO of Apple, Tim Cook said that the company’s long-awaited Siri AI upgrade could come with some paywalled limits. While Cook conceded that these plans are not set in stone, he envisions users being able to buy more compute for Siri AI via its existing iCloud+ subscriptions, which offer extended cloud storage.

“We do believe there will be people that want to use [Siri AI] a lot, and so we will have some kind of upgrade possibilities on iCloud+, where people can buy up the stack on iCloud+, and we’ll see how the pickup for that is,” Cook said on Thursday. “But we could not be more excited about where [Siri AI] is.”

Most other AI providers like Anthropic and OpenAI operate similarly, offering a limited free version to consumers with the option of upgrading to support more usage.

The new-and-improved Siri AI is available in the iOS 27 beta, and is planned to roll out more broadly this fall.

As longtime Senior Vice President of Hardware Engineering John Ternus steps into Tim Cook’s shoes, he will take the helm at a critical time for the company. Apple has fallen behind in its efforts to build an advanced AI assistant, even capitulating to its direct competitor Google by licensing a custom Gemini model to augment Siri. The Siri AI overhaul was so delayed that Apple had to pay $250 million to settle a class action lawsuit over how it marketed the iPhone 16’s AI capabilities.

Apple, like every other hardware manufacturer, is staring down a rocky road for accessing the supplies it needs to meet customer demand. Due to the AI-driven RAM shortage across the industry, it’s more expensive to build hardware, which has led companies like Meta , Samsung , Microsoft , and Sony to raise prices of some devices. Apple raised the price of Macs and iPads last month, but has yet to adjust the price of its existing iPhone models.

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Amanda Silberling is a senior writer at TechCrunch covering the intersection of technology and culture. She has also written for publications like Polygon, MTV, the Kenyon Review, NPR, and Business Insider. She is the co-host of Wow If True, a podcast about internet culture, with science fiction author Isabel J. Kim. Prior to joining TechCrunch, she worked as a grassroots organizer, museum educator, and film festival coordinator. She holds a B.A. in English from the University of Pennsylvania and served as a Princeton in Asia Fellow in Laos.

You can contact or verify outreach from Amanda by emailing amanda@techcrunch.com or via encrypted message at @amanda.100 on Signal.

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Key takeaways

Apple may be setting a new monetization standard for AI assistants with the introduction of a paywall.

Market segmentation in AI could increase, limiting access to advanced features only for paying users.

The RAM shortage and price increases may impact the adoption of new technologies by Brazilian consumers.

Editorial analysis

The proposal for a subscription model for Siri AI, as mentioned by Tim Cook, may signal a significant shift in how Apple monetizes its artificial intelligence technologies. For the Brazilian tech sector, this could indicate a growing trend towards subscription-based services, which has already been adopted by various software companies and digital platforms. This strategy may influence local startups to reconsider their business models, seeking ways to offer premium services that justify an additional cost, especially in a market where competition for attention and resources is intense.

Moreover, the decision to implement a paywall for advanced features of Siri AI could have broader implications for the AI ecosystem. By following the example of other companies like OpenAI and Anthropic, Apple may be creating a standard that other AI developers will follow. This could lead to greater market segmentation, where only users willing to pay can access the more advanced capabilities of virtual assistants, which in turn may limit the democratization of access to AI technologies.

Another point to watch is the impact that the AI-driven RAM shortage will have on the prices of Apple devices and those of its competitors. Apple has already raised prices on some of its products, and the introduction of a paid service for Siri AI may be seen as an attempt to offset rising production costs. For Brazilian consumers, who are already facing a challenging economic landscape, this could result in an additional barrier to the adoption of new technologies.

Finally, the leadership transition at Apple, with John Ternus stepping into the CEO role, will occur at a critical time. The new CEO will have to deal with the pressure to accelerate the development of Siri AI and regain lost ground against competitors like Google. The success of this strategy will depend not only on Apple's innovation capacity but also on how the company positions itself regarding privacy and security issues, which are increasingly relevant to both Brazilian and global consumers.

Siri AI could come with a paywall for power users

Key takeaways

Editorial analysis

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