Apple is about to launch a new Siri that promises to be far more capable than the current version, but there is one detail that Tim Cook has let slip without much disguise: users who want to squeeze all its capabilities will have to pay. The Cupertino company offers free basic access, but usage limits will push many toward a paid subscription.

The intelligent assistant Apple must recover

Apple has not been a leading player in the artificial intelligence race for years. It was a pioneer in including intelligent assistance on mobile—Siri debuted in 2011 with the iPhone 4S—but failed to make the monumental leap that tools like ChatGPT or Gemini managed. Now it is trying to fix this with a completely redesigned Siri that as xataka.com reports, significantly improves interaction capabilities with applications and context understanding.

The good news for users is that it will be free. The bad news: only up to a point. Tim Cook has hinted that Apple will "premiumize" the assistant, meaning that advanced or extensive uses will require additional payment. So far, exactly what that limit will be or what the exact price will be has not emerged.

iCloud+: the gateway to monetizing AI

The real business is not in giving Siri away, but in forcing users to subscribe to iCloud+ to access its full capabilities. Cook was direct in his last investor call: new AI features could significantly increase the number of iCloud users.

To understand the context: Apple's services—including iCloud, App Store, and Apple Music—already represent 28.1% of its total revenue, totalling 30.7 billion dollars in the last quarter. Paid subscriptions already exceed 1.5 billion customers. However, Apple faced an uncomfortable problem: the first sequential decline in services since 2022, which worried investors expecting faster growth.

With the App Store forced to open by European regulators, Apple desperately needs new revenue streams. Linking advanced Siri to iCloud+ is the chosen solution.

Spain and Europe, left out of the equation (for now)

There is an unexpected twist in this story: in Europe, for now, we will not have access to the new Siri. At least not immediately. Apple is holding conversations with European regulators to adapt the tool to the Digital Markets Act (DMA) framework, but until it does, users in Spain and the rest of Europe will have to wait.

There is a silver lining: according to Financial Times, Apple and the EU are in active negotiations and the new Siri will eventually reach European iPhones. The question remains whether, when it does, the usage restrictions and payment requirements will also arrive.

Unanswered questions (for now)

Until September we will not know crucial details: how much advanced Siri will cost, what the limit on free access will be, or whether all iCloud+ tiers will include the new features or only the most expensive ones. For now we only know that Apple has invested in this technology with support from Google and Gemini, and that this cost must be recovered somehow.

What is clear is that Apple's AI battle has a price, and that price will end up on your subscription bills.