Apple’s assistant strategy is heading toward a subscription-style split, with heavy users expected to pay more. On his final earnings call as CEO on July 30, Tim Cook floated the idea of letting people buy additional compute for Siri AI through their existing iCloud+ accounts.
Cook expects a meaningful group of power users, and sketched upgrade options on iCloud+ where customers could buy up the stack, while acknowledging the plans remain provisional. The model would echo the free-plus-paid approach Anthropic and OpenAI already use for their assistants.
Siri AI is currently in the iOS 27 beta, with a wider launch slated for the fall. Apple is still chasing the AI leaders, having licensed a custom Gemini model from Google to reinforce Siri and paid $250M to settle a lawsuit over how it marketed the iPhone 16’s AI features. Hardware chief John Ternus is set to succeed Cook as CEO.
The subscription discussion arrives as AI-driven RAM demand inflates hardware costs industry-wide, and Apple raised Mac and iPad prices in July. iPhone pricing has stayed unchanged so far.
