Apple is reportedly exploring deals with publishers that would enable its reimagined Siri AI assistant to field questions about current events.
According to a Wall Street Journal report this week, Apple is chasing multi-year licensing deals to give Siri AI access to the latest reporting.
The report says: “Apple has proposed a variable compensation plan, with payments made to partner publishers when their content is used, some of the people said. The company has discussed a possible nine-figure budget for the payments, they said.”
One might assume that the Wall Street Journal’s “people familiar with the matter” are the people who handle this kind of deal for the Wall Street Journal, or other News Corp publications.
If a deal goes through, you could imagine iPhone users being able to ask Siri about election results as they happen, sports scores, natural disasters and other notable current affairs. It’d potentially be akin to a news anchor having a discussion with an on-scene reporter, where follow up questions and context is sought.
The reporting suggests that Apple is prepared to spend over $100 million on securing access to this content, which in itself is good news for publishers seeking additional revenue to replace the wholesale theft of traffic via AI chatbots that simply lift whatever has been published to the internet over the last four decades and exploits it without handing over so much as a “click here” let alone any money.
As 9to5Mac points out in its reporting, the New York Times is suing Open AI on Microsoft over allegations their reporting was used wholesale to train AI. Apple pays publishers who place their content on Apple News, but the content licensing deals would not cover it being used to communicate with users of an AI chatbot or personal assistant.
Apple has not commented on the WSJ story. Siri AI will debut on supported Apple devices with iOS 27 (and the requisite versions for Mac, iPad, Apple Watch and more) later this year, but the feature covered in this report is unlikely to be available at launch.
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