Apple is in talks with news publishers over multiyear deals to supply content for its overhauled Siri, proposing to pay only when a publisher's material is actually used rather than a flat guaranteed fee. The talks reportedly carry a possible nine-figure budget, arriving as Apple works through hundreds of millions of dollars in separate Siri-related legal settlements.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Apple has proposed a variable, pay-as-used compensation model to publishers supplying content for its Siri AI overhaul, with a possible nine-figure budget under discussion. Crypto Briefing reported the figure at more than $100 million.
A pay-as-used structure breaks from industry norms
Under the proposed terms, publishers would be paid only when their content is actually used to power a Siri response, rather than through the flat guaranteed fee that has become standard elsewhere in AI licensing. That marks a departure from the guaranteed-fee model typically used between large AI companies and news organizations, which grants broad archive access regardless of how much content actually gets used. Apple declined to comment on the discussions.
The talks extend a pattern Apple has been building. The company reportedly previously produced multiyear agreements valued at $50 million or more with publishers for AI-training rights, and it has run a separate content partnership since 2019 through its Apple News+ subscription, which has generated meaningful revenue for some participants even as others have exited.
The overhaul publishers would feed
Apple unveiled a significantly overhauled Siri at its Worldwide Developers Conference on June 8, 2026, pitching the assistant as smarter, more personal, and more privacy-conscious than its predecessor. If the new Siri-focused deals proceed, they would extend Apple's publisher relationships beyond subscription and training-data arrangements into live, current-events content, a category that carries particular value for an assistant aiming to answer real-time questions accurately.
Legal costs frame the timing
Apple is negotiating the content deals while managing separate legal costs tied to Siri and its AI marketing. In 2025, the company settled a privacy lawsuit over unauthorized data collection through Siri for $95 million. Then in May 2026, weeks before the WWDC reveal, it reached a $250 million settlement over misleading advertising about its early AI capabilities. Together, those two settlements total roughly $345 million in legal costs connected to Siri and AI marketing.
Sources: InvestingLive, Crypto Briefing
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