Apple wants publishers to help make Siri smarter, may pay hundreds of millions: Report

Apple is reportedly in discussions with news publishers over new multiyear deals that would give the iPhone maker access to their content to improve its artificial intelligence-powered Siri voice assistant.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Apple has approached publishers in recent months as it prepares to roll out a major AI upgrade to Siri later this year. The proposed agreements would allow Apple to use publishers’ current news and information to help power the revamped assistant.

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Apple has proposed a variable compensation model under which participating publishers would receive payments when their content is used, the people said. The company has also discussed a potential budget running into the hundreds of millions of dollars for such payments, the report stated.

The proposed arrangement would differ from standard AI content-licensing deals between large technology companies and news organisations. Such agreements typically involve guaranteed fees in exchange for broad access to publishers’ content rather than payments based on individual usage.

Apple’s discussions with publishers come as the company seeks to address longstanding criticism that Siri has been less capable and useful than competing AI assistants. Apple has announced a major Siri upgrade designed to integrate AI more deeply into how users interact with its devices and services.

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Apple has previously paid publishers for content access, including agreements that gave it rights to use material for AI training, WSJ said citing people familiar with those arrangements. The company has also worked with publishers through Apple News+, its paid news and magazine subscription service launched in 2019.

The Wall Street Journal was among the early participants in Apple News+. News Corp, which owns the Journal, has a commercial agreement to supply news through Apple services.

Apple’s efforts to use publisher content for AI also come after an earlier setback. In late 2024, the company began testing AI-generated news summaries for users. The feature generated inaccurate headlines, prompting concerns among publishers and leading Apple to disable it.