Tim Cook hints Siri AI could cost you more

Tim Cook's final earnings call as Apple's chief executive included one line vague enough to leave analysts, and now users, reading between the words.

Responding to a Goldman Sachs question about recovering Siri AI's compute costs through iCloud+, Cook said Apple doesn't yet have "a complete plan" but expects people who want to use it heavily to have "some kind of upgrade possibilities on iCloud+ where people can buy up the stack".

It's the closest Apple has come to confirming a paid tier for its rebuilt assistant, but the phrasing stopped well short of specifics.

Most assumptions before this call pointed to a simple structure: get an iCloud+ subscription, and higher Siri AI usage limits come bundled in depending on your storage tier.

Cook’s response seems quite different. The term “buying up the stack” implies additional purchases made in addition to your subscription rather than usage restrictions placed in the tiers you have to pay for.

The whole strategy of Apple is based on using AI as much as possible within your device to ensure privacy while avoiding the costs of running servers. 

However, in case a task requires more computing power, it will be executed via Apple’s own Private Cloud Compute, or in some situations even via Google’s Gemini servers, and it will cost you money.

Every competitor of Apple’s AI chatbot offers you to pay for additional usage, and Apple itself announced at WWDC the restriction of daily usage of features such as the Image Playground or Clean Up feature from Photos.