Apple Is Negotiating Nine-Figure Deals to Feed Siri AI Real Publisher Content

Summary

Apple has approached major news publishers about multiyear deals that would give Siri AI access to current news and information, according to The Wall Street Journal. Unlike standard AI content licensing, which sets a flat fee for broad access to a publisher’s archive, Apple is proposing to pay publishers each time their content is actually used by Siri in a response. Apple has discussed a nine-figure budget for the program. Siri AI launches this fall with iOS 27, iPadOS 27, and macOS Golden Gate. Apple’s motivation is clear: an Apple Intelligence notification summary feature in 2024 generated fabricated headlines from real news outlets, forcing Apple to pull news summaries entirely for more than a year.

Why it matters

If Siri AI is going to summarize news reliably, it needs up-to-date information and to get the facts right. The per-use payment model is a notable departure from how most AI licensing works, and it matters to publishers because it means being useful drives revenue rather than just signing away rights once. For iPhone users, this is the clearest sign yet that Apple intends for Siri AI to be a real news and information assistant when iOS 27 ships in the fall.

HTD Says

Apple paying publishers per Siri response rather than buying a bulk license is a different approach to the AI content problem, and after the fake-headline fiasco in 2024, it is also a pretty direct acknowledgment that getting this wrong has consequences. Personally, I think this will be a logistical nightmare, but it also offers a more precise way to manage the “content feed.”

What I do worry about is the AI feeding AI issue, where content or articles are written by AI and then used to train or be used directly as a primary source within AI. This is the “blanding” of content and the potential reduction or elimination of original content since everything will be derived. But that is also how humans write; they consume sources, analyze them, and rework them through the infusion of new ideas.

But beyond this, the big story is pay-per-use rather than bulk ingestion of content. Apple is clearly laying down a huge framework to bolster its big Apple Intelligence push with the upcoming macOS, iOS, iPadOS, and watchOS releases. They struggled with their first attempt at Apple Intelligence. They can’t do it again.

Source:

The Wall Street Journal