Apple May Put Siri AI Behind an iCloud+ Paywall

Apple’s long-awaited Siri AI upgrade could eventually include paid usage tiers for customers who rely heavily on the assistant, according to outgoing CEO Tim Cook.

Speaking during his final earnings call as Apple’s chief executive, Cook said the company is considering offering additional Siri AI compute through its existing iCloud+ subscription service. However, he emphasised that the plans are not yet finalised.

“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. “But we could not be more excited about where [Siri AI] is.”

Following the AI subscription model

If introduced, the approach would mirror the pricing strategies used by AI companies such as Anthropic and OpenAI, which provide limited access for free while charging users who require greater capacity or higher usage limits.

The upgraded Siri AI is currently available in the iOS 27 beta and is expected to roll out more broadly later this fall.

Apple faces AI and hardware challenges.

The launch comes during a leadership transition at Apple, with longtime Senior Vice President of Hardware Engineering John Ternus set to succeed Tim Cook as CEO.

Ternus inherits the company at a time when Apple is still working to catch up in the race to build an advanced AI assistant.

The company has already licensed a customised version of Google’s Gemini model to enhance Siri, highlightingApple’ss efforts to accelerate its AI capabilities.

Development delays surrounding Siri AI also proved costly. Apple recently agreed to pay $250 million to settle a class-action lawsuit over how it marketed the iPhone 16’s AI features.

At the same time, Apple continues to face broader industry challenges related to hardware production.

An AI-driven global shortage of memory chips has increased manufacturing costs across the technology sector, prompting companies including Meta, Samsung, Microsoft and Sony to raise prices on some hardware products.

Apple increased prices for certain Mac and iPad models last month, although it has not yet raised prices for its current iPhone lineup.