Apple in talks with publishers to power up AI Siri

Apple is in talks with news publishers to use their content for the next generation of Siri, powered by artificial intelligence, the Wall Street Journal reports — a story independently confirmed by Portuguese outlet ECO and by Engadget. Discussions over new multi-year agreements are said to have begun in recent months, aimed at giving Siri access to current news and other real-time information. The new version of the assistant will run on Google's Gemini models, distilled for Apple under a multi-year partnership between the two companies confirmed in January.

An unusual payment model

According to the Wall Street Journal, Apple has proposed a variable compensation model, under which publishers would be paid each time their content is actually used — unlike most major AI companies, such as OpenAI, which typically offer guaranteed flat fees in exchange for broad content access. The budget earmarked for these payments is said to run into nine figures, meaning hundreds of millions of dollars — in practical terms, somewhere between $100 million and just under $1 billion, a range that dwarfs the licensing fees publishers have typically negotiated with other AI companies so far. Apple declined to comment on the report to the Wall Street Journal; the company has previously paid publishers for content access that included AI training rights.

AI Siri is expected to reach users this fall alongside iOS 27, Apple's next annual mobile software update, with one notable exception: Europe and China will be left out of this first phase, due to local regulatory requirements.

The backdrop: publishers growing wary of AI

This negotiation comes as many publishers reassess their relationship with AI companies, weighing commercial deals against lawsuits and complaints to regulators — some outlets are signing new licensing agreements, others are suing over alleged copyright infringement, and still others are filing complaints with competition or data-protection regulators. The Wall Street Journal also recently reported that Reddit is considering ending its deal with Google, which lets the tech giant train its models in exchange for $60 million a year. Outlets including USA Today, Politico, The Economist, People Inc. and Reuters are likewise assessing how — and whether — to keep working with Google. According to a report from the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, publishers expect search-engine traffic to drop more than 40% over the next three years, a decline partly attributed to Google's AI-generated summaries. In the UK, five major media groups have banded together to form the Standards for Publisher Usage Rights (SPUR) coalition, aiming to set common standards for licensing content to AI.

• Apple's projected budget: in the hundreds of millions of dollars, per the Wall Street Journal
• Payment model: variable, based on actual content use, rather than a guaranteed flat fee
• Engine behind the new Siri: Google's Gemini models, distilled for Apple
• Expected launch: fall 2026 with iOS 27, except in Europe and China

Why this matters even where Siri AI is landing on schedule

Unlike European publishers, American outlets aren't waiting on a delayed rollout: AI Siri is due to reach US users this very fall, which means the payment model Apple settles on will apply almost immediately to any US publisher whose content the assistant draws on. That makes this negotiation a live test case rather than a distant precedent — for newsrooms such as USA Today or Politico, already weighing similar arrangements with Google, Apple's pay-per-use approach could become a template worth pushing for elsewhere, especially as publishers everywhere brace for double-digit declines in search traffic tied to AI-generated summaries. It is also a reminder that the compensation question Apple is trying to answer with a variable fee has no settled answer anywhere yet — American, European or otherwise.